Poems for Lunch

While I tend to think this a poem everyone already knows, it occurs to me that Clementine doesn’t.

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

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Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

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And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

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I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

(Source: poetryfoundation.org)

The crew at Clementine’s school is done with the “Exploration” phase of their unit on cities, but the work has only just begun. As each student decides now what project they want to work on as part of their “Expression,” they’ll still be deeply immersed in their contemplation. Today, I want her to think about the natural side…

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City Trees

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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The trees along this street,

Save for the traffic and the trains,

Would make a sound as thin and sweet

As trees in country lanes.

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And people standing in their shade

Out of a shower, undoubtedly

Would hear such music as is made

Upon a country tree.

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O little leaves that are so dumb

Against the shrieking city air,

I watch you when the wind has come—

I know what sound is there.

…and so in celebration of grandparents, this poem:

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Grandpa Dropped His Glasses

by Leroy F. Johnson

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Grandpa dropped his glasses once

In a pot of dye,

And when he put them on again

He saw a purple sky.

Purple birds were rising up

From a purple hill,

Men were girding purple cider

At a purple mill.

Purple Adeline was playing

With a purple doll,

Little purple dragonflies

Were crawling up the wall.

And at the supper table

He got crazy as a loon

From eating purple apple dumplings

With a purple spoon.

The Gift

by Li-Young Lee

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To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

 .

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

 .

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm,

a silver tear, a tiny flame.

Had you followed that boy

you would have arrived here,

where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

 .

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.

Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father

took my hand like this,

and I did not hold that shard

between my fingers and think,

Metal that will bury me,

christen it Little Assassin,

Ore Going Deep for My Heart.

And I did not lift up my wound and cry,

Death visited here!

I did what a child does

when he’s given something to keep.

I kissed my father.

Looking for a bit of inspiration to power through.

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The Waking

by Theodore Roethke

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I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow,

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear,

I learn by going where I have to go.

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We learn by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

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Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

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Light takes a Tree, but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

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Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

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This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Clementine is learning to make friends but also struggling with how to nurture friendships and allow them room to breathe. Today I want to send her something light (Fridays may just all be rhyming poems from now on) that reminds her how lucky she is to have such great classmates.

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Some People

by Rachel Field

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Isn’t it strange some people make

You feel so tired inside

Your thoughts begin to shrivel up

Like leaves all brown and dried!

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But then you’re with some other ones,

It’s stranger still to find

Your thoughts as thick as fireflies

All shiny in your mind!

To the Light of September

BY W. S. MERWIN

When you are already here

you appear to be only

a name that tells of you

whether you are present or not

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and for now it seems as though

you are still summer

still the high familiar

endless summer

yet with a glint

of bronze in the chill mornings

and the late yellow petals

of the mullein fluttering

on the stalks that lean

over their broken

shadows across the cracked ground

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but they all know

that you have come

the seed heads of the sage

the whispering birds

with nowhere to hide you

to keep you for later

.

you

who fly with them

you who are neither

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before nor after

you who arrive

with blue plums

that have fallen through the night

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perfect in the dew

(Source: poetryfoundation.org)