Cleaning House and Discovering Old Poems

I’ve kept myself busy lately. I’ve been spending as much time as possible with my adorable little granddaughter Julia Anna. I hate to be away from her for more than a couple of days. She seems to change by the hour. (She's grown two inches and gained three pounds since she came home from the hospital. She's also started to lose her hair.)



I’ve also been busy cleaning house. Actually, I’ve been cleaning my basement. When I took a year’s leave of absence from my teaching job in 1999 so I could return to school and take library media courses, I brought home bins of educational materials. When I retired from my school library position in 2004, it took me the entire summer to bring all my books and library resources home. I threw little away at first because I was still teaching a children’s literature course at Boston University. Now that I’m completely retired, I felt it was time to get rid of things I don’t need that have been cluttering up our basement. I’ve thrown away hundreds of old educational and library review journals, classroom activities and curriculum units that I had developed over the years, and various and sundry other things.

One great thing that has happened while I've been cleaning house is discovering old poems, parts of poems, and rough drafts of poems that I had forgotten about. I had stuffed them into bins that I stored on shelves in my basement a long time ago. I didn’t even recall writing most of these poems and poetic tidbits…on my typewriter.
I thought I’d post some of these "newly discovered" poetic items for Poetry Friday:


UNTITLED

Oh, to be a bird and sing
And wake the apple blossom spring.

Oh, to be a bird and rest
My feathers in a treetop nest.

Oh, to be a bird and fly
And brush my wingtips blue with sky.

Oh, to be a bird and see
The whole world spinning under me.


LIMERICK

There once was a snail who could climb
Up Jack’s beanstalk—if given the time.
     Upon reaching the tip—
     Well, he started to slip
Down the stalk on a river of slime.


MOON MAGIC

Here I am—
The man in the Moon—
Shining my bright
Sky face.
Here I am—
The night wizard,
Alchemist of light—
Changing the sun’s fiery gold
To cool silver.


POND LILIES

Lily pads pressed
on the water,
their shiny leaves
overlapping,
stitched together with
needles of sunlight,
stretch across the pond:
a small green sky
alight with
petalled stars.


ICICLES


From the eaves
icicles hang—
a crystal fringe
sequined with sunlight.
The sun’s yellow fingers
loosen their snowy stitches,
rub their glassy skin
until
bit by melting bit
they lose themselves
in the snow,
leaving their tracks
in a tidy row.

I haven't decided whether I should do more work on these poems--or just put them back in platic bins.

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Anastasia Suen has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Picture Book of the Day.

Over at Blue Rose Girls, I have a post titled Banned Books Week: Jonah Goldberg Claims It's Just ALA Propaganda.