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A couple of weeks ago, I posted some pictures of the built-in bookcases that we had installed at our new home. I’ve already begun filling the shelves—even though we haven’t moved yet.
Julia likes to visit my “library,” look at all the pictures books, pull books off the shelves and “read” them. Sometimes, she insists on taking one of the books back over to her side of the house.
(BTW, we're planning to have another built-in bookcase made for our upstairs hallway. One can never have too many bookcases!)
I often grab my “gram cam” to snap pictures of Julia reading books.
Julia reading Miss Mary Mack.
Julia reading Merry Christmas, Ollie!
One of Julia’s new favorites isn’t a picture book. It’s Grace Lin’s Dumpling Days. One night last week, she refused to go to bed without the book. On Wednesday afternoon, she sat on the floor of the family room quietly flipping through the pages and looking at the illustrations/sketches that Grace included in her novel. That night, her dad told me she chose Dumpling Days over her favorite stuffed animal when he put her to sleep.
Your SUN poem "warmed" me. And your granddaughter is one lucky girl to be surrounded by so many books! Too funny that a novel is her current favorite. =)
Glad to see Julia with the books, Elaine. You are clever to have composed that poem "in the air'. Nice to have companion poems! You've given me an idea!
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Oh my goodness Elaine, Julia has gotten to be such a big little girl. OF COURSE she loves to read, how could she not. Beautiful bookcases! I never catch up on blogs, as much as I'd love to but something on facebook made me think to read yours tonight. I'm glad I did! Rebecca
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I know I’ve mentioned more than once on this blog that I LOVE writing animal mask poems. I have written dozens of them. A few years ago, I took the advice of my friends Grace Lin and Janet Wong and culled out all the poems about smaller animals and insects that children might observe in their backyards or find close to home for a collection. I also wrote some new poems. I had tentatively titled the collection Backyard Voices. Then I changed it to Listen! Listen! after I wrote the following poem to introduce my collection of animal mask poems:
Listen. Listen. Cup an ear.
Little creatures living near
Speak in voices we can hear.
One of the new poems that I wrote for Listen! Listen! is about insects that we hate to find invading our homes—TERMITES.
I love that Tastes so/Tastes so/Tastes so good! What a fun poem - and what a beautiful Julia. Lucky both of you! I missed you at NCTE, Elaine... xo, a.
One of the things I remember most about the autumns of my childhood is the scent of burning leaves. I miss that today. The following poem is based on my memory of a time I spent with two of my cousins at my grandparents’ house. We raked up a pile of autumn leaves and sat on wooden crates watching—and smelling—the leaves burn at dusk on a cool October day.
AUTUMN FIRE
By Elaine Magliaro
Two tall maple trees grow
in front of my grandparents’ house. In late October they shed their golden crowns. When the fallen leaves curl up like little brown bear cubs, we rake them into a pile at the side of the street. As dusk arrives Dzidzi sets our harvest afire with a single match. We sit on wooden crates at the sidewalk’s edge, watch the brittle leaves blossom into golden flames, smell autumn’s pungent breath. From the pyre summer rises, a small gray ghost, and drifts away into the darkening sky.
The three winners of Janet Wong’s book Declaration of Interdependence: Poems for an Election year are Gretchen, Bridget Wilson, and vezenimost. Congratulations to all of you!
Note to the winners: Please email me your names and addresses and I will send the books off to you.
5 Comments on Autumn Fire: A Memoir Poem & Book Winners Announcement, last added: 10/14/2012
I wrote the first draft of the following animal mask poem last month. I kept fiddling with it over the weeks. I felt it needed a couple more lines—but hit a wall. Then, when I was in bed the other night, two lines just popped into my head.
Here is my most recent draft of that poem--which is told in the voice of migrating geese:
THE SOUND OF FALL
By Elaine Magliaro
So long…farewell. We’re on our way.
We must depart. We can’t delay Our journey to a warmer clime. Mother Nature warned: “It’s time!” We’re heading south before the snow… And winter winds begin to blow. We leave you with our parting call— Honk! Honk! Honk! THAT’S the sound of fall.
P.S. Check out Laura’s terrific collection of poems about books and reading, BookSpeak! It would be an excellent book to share with elementary students.
5 Comments on THE SOUND OF FALL: An Original Animal Mask Poem, last added: 10/25/2012
Since we have the cold & snow in Colorado, I always wonder why our copious numbers of geese don't leave, only some do. I guess I should ask a ranger or wildlife biologist. Nice to hear this, Elaine. I always like your mask poems.
I am rereading (listening this time) to Wallace Stegner's CROSSING TO SAFETY. He has a beautiful passage describing the sound and sight of geese in the fall. We, too, have lots of year round geese, but this is still one of my favorite fall sounds!
Yesterday, I watched my granddaughter Julia as she looked out the side door at two gray squirrels scampering along the old rock wall that serves as the boundary line between our “new” property and the property of our next door neighbors. It’s fun for me to look at a familiar scene like squirrels skittering around through the eyes of little Julia who gets so excited about such things. I enjoy listening to her excited noises when she gets wrapped up in the wonder of things that are new to her young eyes.
Today, I’m sharing an animal mask poem. In it, I tried to capture the voice of a squirrel busy scavenging for food in autumn.
BUSYBODY
By Elaine Magliaro
I’m a hurrier scurrier scamperer scavenger searching for acorns and maple tree seeds stashing them now for my wintertime needs.
It’s autumn…
I’m busy. I’ve much work to do. So sorry I can’t stop To visit with you.
Must hurry,
Must scurry… Can’t chatter today. I’m busy…too busy Must be on my way.
********************
Here are some pictures of Julia enjoying her first tastes of her Grampy’s yummy homemade lasagna:
Here are two pictures that I took of her when we vacationed in Maine in late August:
Here is a picture that I took of Julia at her first birthday party in August:
Adorable! What shockingly beautiful eyes she has. I love your squirrel poem too. There is just something about squirrels I never get tired of watching, even when they are stealing from my birdfeeders. Hooray for the delight of the young, that focuses our attention on such things in a new way.
You must realize that Julia takes precedence even over your fine poem, Elaine! She is so beautiful! Granddaughters are very special! But, I do love what you do with those mask poems, just capture the animals so well. I like the way that first verse sounds a lot.
Oh, what gorgeous photographs,Elaine. And so sweet to see how she has grown in the spaces between the photographs. My older son is 14 today and his 1st birthday seems such a distant memory...
I love your poem too. Squirrels and autumn are just perfect together.
I apologize for being absent from Wild Rose Readerfor so long. It has been an especially busy and hectic summer for me. Just this past month, I’ve attended two family weddings, celebrated my granddaughter Julia's first birthday, vacationed in Maine, and bought a house! My husband and I hadn’t planned on moving because we love the house we are living in at the present time--and we love our neighborhood. I have, however, been spending a lot of time away from home living at my daughter’s and providing daycare for my granddaughter. That has left me little time to read, write, blog, spend with my husband, or visit with friends and other family. My husband, daughter, son-in-law, and I decided a few months ago that it would best for all of us if we could find a home where we could all live together. I didn’t think we’d find the perfect place so soon...but we did. It was the first property that we looked at.
Here are some pictures that I took yesterday of the grounds around the house:
My daughter, son-in-law, and Julia will live in the main house—a Georgian farmhouse built around 1790--with an addition that was built circa 1850. My husband and I will live in the in-law suite--the carriage house that was converted into an apartment in 1999.
The original owner of the house was a woodworker and an apple farmer. In fact, he had an apple orchard on our property. The thought of an apple orchard brought to mind a memoir poem that I wrote about my maternal grandparents and the apples that grew in their yard.
APPLES
We tasted the green apples of summer,
watched the season pass through Dzidzi’s garden,
shared its bounty.
Now we help harvest the autumn apples.
Dzidzi places two large baskets beneath the tree.
He stands on a ladder and reaches for the highest apples.
Thanks! We have three-and-a-half acres. That means lots of upkeep. We have to get a ride-on mower.
The house is in Massachusetts--about a twenty-five-minute drive from the house where we're living now. My husband and I haven't moved in yet. We haven't put our house on the market yet because we want to do a few things to our in-law apartment, which had been very well cared for and is in excellent condition. We plan to tear out the wall-to-wall carpeting and put in some built-in bookcases. I don't know where I'm going to put all my children's books! I'll certainly miss the library that I built in my basement several years ago.
Although I'm sad about leaving the house where I have lived for thirty-six years...and my library--I know this is the best thing for all of us. I can't wait to see how beautiful "the farm" is in autumn.
P.S. My daughter's Yellow Lab Jack has been having a grand time swimming in the pool. He spends half the day there!
Oh, this poem is glorious. I love the quiet images, the separation of apples...both perfect in their own way. We, too, love apples here - and we usually make lots of cider each autumn.
Congrats on your great summer and new home. How beautiful and wonderful that you will all be near each other - and what a beautiful place!
The poem is as beautiful as the photos! I esepcially like the last part, describing the dishes that will be created - probably because I make all those, too!
I especially like the ending of your lovely poem, too! I'm sure it will be hard leaving your beautiful old home, but congrats on the beautiful new home.
The new home sounds gorgeous -- the grounds certainly are. How wonderful for Julia to have her grandparents so near by all the time growing up! Someday she'll write poems about you, just like your beautiful poems about Babci and Dzidzi.
It's so nice to hear from you & how your life is going, Elaine. I hear that you will be sad to leave your wonderful home, but where you are going sounds & looks gorgeous too, & to be right there with family, especially Julia, is nice. I will be moving sometime to be nearer my daughter & the granddaughters. I know it will be easier on us all & such fun. Best wishes to you all in your transition. I love your poem about your grandparents, and love apples. You've captured so many of the motions that are important, including the cooking of those wonderful fruits. I can just see a painting of the scene. Thanks.
Backyard Mermaids is a memoir poem. It relates a memory of one of the summer experiences I had with two of my first cousins at the home of my maternal grandparents. My cousins lived on one side of my grandparents’ house. We spent lots of vacation days together—running through the lawn sprinkler, picking vegetables in my grandfather’s garden, playing dress-up in the basement, meeting in our clubhouse under my grandparents’ front porch.
I am so glad to read of your 'clubhouse' because I rarely find anyone who did 'clubs' when they were young. We did it endlessly, & I think most of its allure was the planning of the rules. Thanks for this memory of playing in the yard, Elaine. I love "bare feet squishing through wet grass". I can feel it now, know just what you mean.
Elaine, I'm a dunce and can't figure out how to line for the Poetry Friday Round Up this week, so I thought I'd just drop by and invite you to stop by my blog and read about the new Poetry Friday Anthology and Rebecca Kai Dotlich has a poem to share, Mrs. Betty. You'll be welcome at www.poetryforkidsjoy.blogspot.com
Every now and then, I like to write poems about a particular subject in a number of different ways. I have arranged the following three mole poems in the order in which I wrote them. The first poem is a “things to do” list poem; the second and third are mask poems.
THINGS TO DO IF YOU ARE A MOLE
Make your home
in the damp darkness
underground
unknowing of snow
and stars
and summer breezes.
Live among roots
and rocks
and sleeping cicadas.
Excavate tunnels
in the moist brown earth.
Listen for the soft music
of seeds sprouting,
worms wiggling,
rain pattering on your grassy roof.
Spend your days in a world
of unending night.
MOLE ANSWERS AN INTERVIEW QUESTION
I live in the earth.
I burrow through soil.
A claw-footed creature,
In darkness I toil.
I excavate tunnels.
I really DIG dirt!
I’m a fine engineer.
I do hate to be curt…
But I’m here on the job…
I can’t stop now to chat.
I’m a hole-digging mole.
I’ll just leave it at that!
MOLE
Psst! Psst! HEY! I’m right down here.
I’m a busy little engineer
Building tunnels underground.
You rarely hear ME make a sound.
3 Comments on MOLE POEMS: Variations on a Theme, last added: 7/28/2012
These are all so good, Elaine, rhymic & with the right amount of info. I love that "rain pattering on your grassy roof". Thanks for more of your content poems!
One of my favorite sounds is that of crickets chirping on summer nights. I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to them lately because it has been so hot around here lately that we’ve had to run the air conditioner in our bedroom.
Here’s an acrostic poem I wrote some years ago about crickets strumming on summer evenings:
Chirping in the dark, their song
Resonates
In the still air. A
Chorus of summer night strummers in concert with
Katydids
Entertaining warm evenings with
Their
4 Comments on CRICKETS: An Original Acrostic, last added: 7/20/2012
What a great memory. I could almost smell the warm tomatoes. When I was a child, my mother let us pick and eat anything we wanted fresh from the garden, any time of the day...new carrots, radishes, cucumbers, warm tomatoes...all with that fresh dirt and sweet, sweet new smell! Thanks for taking me back there.
Thanks to all for your comments about memories of my childhood. Spending time at the home of my maternal grandparents was truly an enriching experience for me. The memories of those days in my past are still vivid for me today. They have provided me with fodder for writing poetry.
Last September, I wrote a post titled Cleaning House and Discovering Old Poems. Well, I’ve been cleaning house again—that’s why I’ve taken a brief break from blogging. This time, I am truly a woman on a mission. I’ve been throwing away TONS of stuff—except for old poems. My library/office in my basement had become so cluttered and disorganized that it was difficult to find things. (That wasn’t the only room in the house that needed attention!) It feels so good to be getting rid of things that I don’t need or no longer use…to be organized…to have room once more in my cupboards and drawers and closets…to be able to locate things easily.
While going through all my stuff, I found some old photographs and newspaper clippings. Memories came flooding back—memories of family…friends…times past…places we have traveled to. I also began to think about all the happy memories the house where I live holds for me. I admit that I have a sentimental attachment to my home of thirty-six years.
There is another house that holds a special place in my heart. It’s the home of my maternal grandparents where I spent many of my of my happiest childhood days. This Friday, I’m taking a stroll down memory lane with the following poem about my grandparents’ house.
A Home for the Seasons
My grandparents’ house seems to hug their shady street.
A white duplex, its twin front doors
stand side by side
just three steps up from the sidewalk.
4 Comments on A Home for the Seasons: An Original Memoir Poem, last added: 7/7/2012
My maternal grandparents got me my first bicycle when I was in first grade. I had a little bit of trouble learning how to keep myself steady on my new bike without training wheels. Once I learned how to ride it though—I rode it everywhere! I loved the feeling of freedom it gave me. I could imagine I was flying through the air.
My daughter LOVED riding her bike when she was young too. She’d whiz around our neighborhood—her blond hair flowing in the wind. She could pedal for hours and not get tired. I think she got the same feeling riding her bike as I did when I was a kid.
This “things to do” poem is for my daughter Sara and the fond memories I have of her speeding around our neighborhood on her bicycle.
THINGS TO DO IF YOU ARE A BICYCLE
When I pedal with my feet,
Zoom me up and down the street…
wheels whirring,
spokes blurring.
Help me lift off from this earthly place.
Rocket me into outer space.
1 Comments on Things to Do If You Are a Bicycle: An Original Poem, last added: 4/12/2012
When I was teaching second grade, we did a unit of study on butterflies and metamorphosis. My students and I enjoyed observing the development of tiny caterpillars into adult painted lady butterflies in the classroom. I’d take my class on a field trip to The Butterfly Place in Westford, Massachusetts every spring. We loved watching many different kinds of butterflies flitting around under the clear dome, settling on flowers, sipping nectar through their proboscises. It was fascinating!
PAINTED LADY
I settle on a blossom.
I taste it with my feet, Uncoil my long proboscis And sip the nectar sweet.
I flit around in sunlight.
I wile away the hours Dining in your garden, Feasting on your flowers.
********************
Painted Lady Butterfly Life Cycle
2 Comments on PAINTED LADY: An Original Animal Mask Poem, last added: 4/13/2012
It's amazing that you can make a mole sound so endearing. The ones we've had in our yard are so destructive -- yet now I'm looking at their lives a little differently thanks to your poem. :)
What a fun look at the world from the mole's point of view! Thanks for sharing. [I will not share with my dogs - they're pretty rough on moles, and I wouldn't want anything to happen to your poetic narrator.]
I was so excited to see this! Having just wrote a mole poem for Think Kid, Think!, I am rather fond of moles. And yours, Elaine, is adorable. That big brown heart of Mother Earth is fantastic. Love. a.
Your animal mask poems are wonderful, Elaine! Today, you've got me thinking of The Wind in the Willows. Just for fun, here's a clip of the 1995 animated film adaptation. My daughter loves the score. You'll see Mole at around the 2 1/2-minute mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNI1HfSkivE
A few years ago, I wrote a poem titled Things to Do If You Are Night. This past week, I thought I’d attempt writing one titled Things to Do if You Are Day--which is composed of rhyming couplets. Here are both poems:
Things to Do If You Are Night
Be the shadow of day. Put the sun to bed and light the moon. Rouse sleeping rabbits and owls. Paint the oceans black. Sprinkle the sky with stars. Slip softly away before dawn.
Things to Do If You Are Day
Arrive at dawn. Bid stars goodbye.
Switch on the sun and light the sky. Send night creatures off to bed. Make morning rise like a loaf of bread. Wake drowsy bees in their honeyed hive.
3 Comments on Two original Poems: Things to Do If You Are Night & Things to Do If You Are Day, last added: 4/15/2012
Elaine, these poems are so beautiful. I like that they're together too, & can imagine reading them in the early morn at school, or for best wishes at the end.
This poem is dedicated to the memory of my maternal grandfather "Dzidzi." Dzidzi loved growing things--including fruit trees, flowers, bushes...and especially vegetables in he backyard garden. Dzidzi's Garden comes from my unpublished collection of memoir poems titled A Home for the Seasons.
DZIDZI’S GARDEN
After a long New England winter,
Dzidzi grows impatient for planting season. He enjoys working outdoors growing things— “like I did in the Old Country.” How Dzidzi loves his garden. He cares for it the way a father cares for his children. It is his other home, the one with a ceiling of sky and a carpet of brown earth. In late spring, in summer, and in early autumn, he spends his weekends and his hours after work at the leather factory here breaking up clods of hardened earth, sowing seeds, watering, weeding, and tending to his plants. During growing season, family and neighbors are always welcome to pick carrots, cucumbers, onions, peppers, beets, beans, and the fattest, reddest tomatoes in all of Massachusetts from my grandfather’s vegetable patch. We all reap the rewards of Dzidzi’s green thumb.
1 Comments on Dzidzi's Garden: An Original Memoir Poem, last added: 4/18/2012
Lovely to capture that memory, Elaine! I love the ceiling as his sky and earth as his carpet. More people today seem to be gardening & carrying on what your Dzidzi did with love.
Hi Elaine, I received the books today. Thank you!! I love acrostics that weave the words & you choose words that sound so good, 'even, steady beat...' Nice!
A few years ago, Grace Lin and Janet Wong critiqued my manuscript of animal mask poems. When they read Pterodactyl’s Wish, they got the idea that I should write a collection of poems about extinct animals.
Pterodactyl’s Wish
I’m pterodactyl. I’m extinct. I’m just a fossil now… A relic of Earth’s ancient past. I wish that I knew how To break these rocky bonds Which keep me trapped in days of yore So I could flap my stony wings And fly again once more.
I got to work right away on the collection. I read nonfiction books about dinosaurs and other extinct animals. I also did research on the Internet. I soon began writing poems about different kinds of dinosaurs, fossils, the woolly mammoth, the dodo bird, Beelzebufo (a giant frog), the megalodon, the La Brea Tar Pits. I also wrote a poem about the coelacanth—a fish that was thought to have gone extinct over sixty million years ago.
Here’s some information about the coelacanth from National Geographic:
The primitive-looking coelacanth (pronounc
3 Comments on Coelacanth Speaks...December 1938: An Original Animal Mask Poem, last added: 4/27/2012
Elaine, you have done such beautiful work here with the background of these creatures. Like the other mask poems, they are good examples of telling about the creature so creatively. I loved the video too. It's amazing that we have actual pictures of animals like these. Thanks!
I minored in science when I was getting my degree in education. I have a passion for both science and poetry--and loved integrating them in my elementary classroom.
I have a good excuse for posting late this Poetry Friday. Look at the picture below.
Here's the background story. I was the second car in line at the drive-up window at the bank where we do business. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the car in front of me BACKING UP! I honked my horn--but too late. The driver of the car crashed into me and broke my passenger-side headlight. So it goes.
Now...from car crashes to poetry...about children's books.
One of the things that I enjoyed most about being an elementray school teacher was reading aloud to children. It's something that I still miss eight years after my retirement. These days I--like other family members--love reading to my little granddaughter Julia Anna who is beginning to understand books better now that she is eight-months-old. She does, however, still enjoy chewing on her favorite board books.
Janeczko's book threw me for a loop that I still haven't recovered from. The detail and humanity is his writing shines in this collection. Thanks for highlighting it1
Me? I’m the month when spring is in full swing...when the sun batters up
And hits a home run nearly every day…when
You find summer in the bullpen warming up.
********************
REMINDER
Win a Poetry Book!
I’ve decided to extend National Poetry Month until May 5that Wild Rose Reader. That means if you leave a comment at any of my poetry posts (except for the Poetry Friday Roundup) that I publish from Sunday, April 29ththrough Saturday, May 5th—I’ll enter your name in the drawing to win a copy of I Am the Book—with poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkinsand illustrations by Yayo.
7 Comments on MAY: An Original Acrostic, last added: 5/6/2012
alas, if only your poem were true in this neck of the woods. rain, cold rain, freezing overnights so far, and only the possibility of cloudy sun this weekend before more comes.
but where april brings showers may brings hope. here's to the bullpen.
I feel as if I’ve fallen off the face of the kidlit blogging world. It’s difficult finding time to write book reviews and new poems to post at Wild Rose Reader when I’m away from home so much and so busy taking care of my granddaughter Julia—who will turn ten-months-old next week!
Today, I thought I’d post an acrostic poem about June…as this is the first day of the month.
Just as spring grows weary, Mother Nature
Ushers in a brand
New season of sun and fun.
Everyone cheers for summer and the end of school.
P.S. Julia LOVES blackberries!
***************
9 Comments on JUNE: An Original Acrostic Poem, last added: 6/2/2012
Julia looks like she's thinking deep poetic thoughts in that first lovely pic - glad to see she has a wild side in the second one! ;0) Thanks for ushering in June with your cheery poem.
Julia has the same adorable look since early, early. My granddaughter was 10 months on the 29th, so they are so close in age. Love those blackberries, & your poem Elaine. Summer is definitely here in CO!
Lots of berry poems today-two about strawberries and now yours about blackberries. They make me hungry! And your yummy granddaughter makes me hungry for grand babies (ok, maybe not quite yet, but soon).
P.S. Jack says, "I'm kind of a rascal too! Besides dog parks, digging and playing fetch, my other favorite hobbies are counter surfing and garbage digging!"
Thanks for stopping by, everyone! It is such a great pleasure for me to be able to share so many wonderful moments with my granddaughter. Still, I miss my blogging friends.
I’ve mentioned many times on this blog how much I enjoy writing animal mask poems. I have quite a collection of them. A couple of years ago at the suggestion of two friends and writing advisers (Grace Lin and Janet Wong), I culled the poems about smaller animals that children might observe in their backyards or close to home--earthworms, frogs, spiders, butterflies, etc.--for a collection that I call Backyard Voices. I also began writing more poems about little creatures that most children are familiar with for the collection.
In addition, I took the poems about bigger and/or boastful animals (grizzly bear, blue whale, lion, toucan) and put them in a separate collection tentatively titled Loud and Proud. As I was reading through my Loud and Proud manuscript this morning, I found a poem about a rooster I had forgotten that I had written. (I love finding forgotten poems!) Here it is:
ROOSTER
Cock-a-doodle-doodle-do!
The sun is rising. You should too.
Wake up! Wake up, sleepyhead.
Get your body out of bed.
Cock-a-doodle-doodle-do!
I bring the morning news to you.
6 Comments on ROOSTER: An Original Animal Mask Poem, last added: 6/11/2012
"Rise and shine poems": the world definitely needs MANY more of these! Wouldn't it be great if there was a "wake up poem clock" that read a "wake up poem" to you instead of buzzing?
My husband and I became shareholders in a local organic farm this year. We’re happy about being involved in CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). CSA has become popular around these parts. We had been on a waiting list for two years.
Last Monday, my husband, daughter, and granddaughter went to Appleton Farms to pick our weekly barn share of farm produce. They also "picked-our-own share" from the garden. One item they reaped from the garden was a basket of strawberries. Yum!
With strawberries on my mind this week, I decided to post a childhood memoir poem about picking the luscious red fruit in my grandfather’s garden.
PICKING STRAWBERRIES
We pick strawberries
in Dzidzi’s garden,
snap their dark green stems,
finger their beaded coats,
and pop them
into our mouths.
We sink our teeth
into soft, sweet rubies,
little jewels bursting
with the flavor of summer sunshine.
********************
Super teacher Mary Lee Hahn has the Poetry Friday Roundup over at A Year of Reading.
6 Comments on PICKING STRAWBERRIES: An Original Memoir Poem, last added: 6/17/2012
Wonderful to think of soft sweet rubies! I made some strawberry shortcake from some strawberries given to me this week...I'm thinking it's time to do it again!!!
I too love those 'soft, sweet rubies'. Although I haven't been able to do more than go to the farmer's market, I have them from there & there is shortcake. Thanks Elaine for the scrumptious poem.
man oh man there is NOTHING like eating strawberries in the field! We went to a farm to pick this past week and I was bowled over by the taste. Forget those supermarket pretenders!! I made jam yesterday from what we picked, and we are loving the fresh berries after dinner. Thanks for sharing that poem.
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Lovely -- sun melting the stars!
Wonderful bookcase, Elaine. Happy to see Pooh there among all those great books. Julia has excellent taste already, choosing Dumpling Days! :)
Your granddaughter is a voracious reader already -- yay! I especially like the same line that Jama mentioned, those melting stars :-)
Your SUN poem "warmed" me. And your granddaughter is one lucky girl to be surrounded by so many books! Too funny that a novel is her current favorite. =)
Glad to see Julia with the books, Elaine. You are clever to have composed that poem "in the air'. Nice to have companion poems! You've given me an idea!
Jama, Tabatha, Bridget, & Linda,
Thanks for your comments. It's such fun being a grandmother...and being able to help hook my granddaughter on books!
Love those melting stars...and watching the rising sun of your life (Julia!!) become a reader!
I'm crushing on your shelves...so true that you can never have too many!!
Lovely photographs - Julia will need book cases like yours very soon. She looks like someone who will have a library of her very own.
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Oh my goodness Elaine, Julia has gotten to be such a big little girl. OF COURSE she loves to read, how could she not. Beautiful bookcases! I never catch up on blogs, as much as I'd love to but something on facebook made me think to read yours tonight. I'm glad I did!
Rebecca
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