Friday, October 5, 2012

THE SOUND OF FALL: An Original Animal Mask Poem


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.

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Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Writing the World for Kids.

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:

jama said...

Always nice to see you post another original poem. I agree about the honking sound -- true clarion for my favorite season.

Linda B said...

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.

laurasalas said...

Elaine, happy to see a new poem from you! Honking geese is one of my favorite autumn things! And thanks for the BookSPeak shoutout:>)

By the way, I didn't see a link in Mr. Linky for your post, so I added one. Hope I didn't duplicate...

Mary Lee said...

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!

Kitchen worktops man said...

Brilliantly lively, rhythmical annunciation of this beautiful season!