Showing posts with label Autumn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autumn. Show all posts

Friday, October 20, 2017

Poetry Friday -- WonderFALL



WonderFALL
by Michael Hall
Greenwillow, 2016

Brightly colored trees? Check.
Clear blue skies and comfortable temperatures? Check.
Arkansas Blacks available from Ochs' Fruit Farm at the Farmers Market? Check.
Fall comic from Incidental Comics? Check.
27/29 parent conferences completed? Check.
First formal observation in the books? Check.
Science test graded and returned? Check.
Ready to welcome 30th student to the class next week? Check.
Even more ready to enjoy a four-day Fall Break? Check, check, CHECK!

And what better way to welcome Fall and a bit of a break than with a few selections from Michael Hall's WonderFALL.

An oak tree is the speaker in these poems:


PeaceFALL

A gentle
breeze is
jiggling
me.

I hear
my
acorns
drop.

Plink,
plunk,
plop.


PlentyFALL

Apples,
apples,
ready to
munch.

Yellow,
red,
green--
crunch,
crunch!


BeautiFALL

Autumn
colors,
all around.

And look
(rustle, rustle) --
I'm dressed
for the
season,
too.


I hope your fall is treating you well (or spring, as the case may be in the Southern Hemisphere)! Join Leigh Ann at A Day in the Life for this week's Poetry Friday Roundup!


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Slice of Life: Lost and Found Writing


Almost 20 years ago, we lived in a neighborhood with a magnificent gingko tree at the end of our street. It stood, not in a yard, but in front of an industrial business. One autumn morning, when I was out early walking the dog, I found the tree, which had been full of yellow light just the day before, a skeleton of bare branches with a perfect circle of yellow leaves on the ground underneath it. I went home and wrote this story.

*   *   *   *   *

In the Way Back, in the time of naming things, Earth Woman lived beside the Gingko Tree. 

During the Hot Time, its fan-shaped leaves cooled her all through her working days. 

As the nights grew chilly and the days shortened, Earth Woman was more and more thankful for the warmth of her fire.

One morning, Earth Woman noticed that the tree who had fanned her in the Hot Time had turned the bright yellow of the flames of her fire. Even though the tree gave off no heat, its yellow light warmed her all through her working days.

Soon there came a night of sharp frost, and the day that followed was no warmer. The Cold Time had stopped teasing and had finally arrived. 

Earth Woman sat in the yellow light of the Gingko Tree and pulled her blankets more tightly around her on that first morning of the Cold Time. She turned her thoughts back to the Hot Time and thanked the Spirits for all of the particular joys of that time. Then she said goodbye to those memories as she prepared to embrace each of the particular joys of the Cold Time.

As she began releasing her memories, she heard a faint rustling around her and felt light kisses on her head and shoulders and knees. She opened her eyes for a moment and saw that the Gingko was also releasing its memories in a steady flutter of leaves -- the yellow light, like shattered rays of sun or individual flames of fire, was leaving the tree to join Earth Woman on the ground.

Earth Woman smiled, closed her eyes, and resumed her goodbyes.

When she opened her eyes again, the tree was bare and she sat in a pool of fallen light. Her memories of the Hot Time had all been released and she was ready to accept this first memory of the Cold Time. She looked around at the fallen leaves, the fallen light, and she named her first memory of the Cold Time. 

She named it Fall. 



*   *   *   *   *


On Sunday, we biked through our old neighborhood and then south for an hour in the glorious autumn sunshine. The gingko tree is still there, and so is the ghost of Earth Woman.






Friday, September 19, 2014

Poetry Friday -- Autumn



Autumn
by Linda Pastan

I want to mention
summer ending
without meaning the death
of somebody loved

or even the death
of the trees.
Today in the market
I heard a mother say

Look at the pumpkins,
it's finally autumn!
And the child didn't think
of the death of her mother

which is due before her own
but tasted the sound
of the words on her clumsy tongue:
pumpkin; autumn.

Let the eye enlarge
with all it beholds.
I want to celebrate
color, how one red leaf

flickers like a match
held to a dry branch,
and the whole world goes up
in orange and gold.




Amy has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Poem Farm. I'll be at the Ohio Casting for Recovery retreat all weekend, so I'll catch up with your posts (hopefully) at some point next week.

If you would like to make a donation to Casting for Recovery, Orvis is matching all donations until September 23. Secure donations can be made here. You can designate the Ohio retreat (or your state's retreat).

Happy Fall! Happy Friday! Happy Poetry!


Friday, November 08, 2013

Poetry Friday -- Cinquains


I can't write a poem a day in November, of all months. Nor could I (ever?) write a novel in a month. No NaPo(a day)WriMo or NaNoWriMo for me!

But not one to leave ALL the challenges to everyone else, I have challenged myself to write a poem a week. Not just any old poem, I'm going to try writing one inspired by Tricia's Monday Poetry Stretch. This week, the stretch was to write a cinquain, and Tricia totally rescued this form for me. Lo and behold, cinquains were NOT invented to test a writer's knowledge of the parts of speech! They are more like a Japanese tanka, and follow a syllable pattern in the 5 lines of 2, 4, 6, 8, 2.

It was threatening to rain on Wednesday after school, so I kept the Environmental Club kids close to the building as we gathered gorgeously-colored fallen leaves from the Maples, Sweet Gums, and Bradford Pears out front.

When we brought our treasures inside, I had art supplies ready, and in less than 5 minutes, there was a creative hum in the room as the students tried to capture the beauty of the sky and trees on their paper. Vivaldi's Four Seasons played in the background.







Try to
capture Autumn's
color with paint, collage.
Today's art will be forgotten,
not lost.


Dark sky
Children's laughter
Brilliant colors of fall
Collect beauty strewn by the trees
New art


Brilliant
color against
heavy dark purple skies:
red, gold, green, orange, yellow, brown.
Rain begins.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013




Diane has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at Random Noodling.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

October Mosaic

















































Fall colors, Fairfield County Fair. Other than that, October was a blur of schoolwork.

Photos can be seen full size on Flickr.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Pumpkin; Autumn.



Autumn

by Linda Pastan

I want to mention
summer ending
without meaning the death
of somebody loved

or even the death
of the trees.
Today in the market
I heard a mother say

Look at the pumpkins,
it's finally autumn!
And the child didn't think
of the death of her mother

which is due before her own
but tasted the sound
of the words on her clumsy tongue:
pumpkin; autumn.

Let the eye enlarge
with all it beholds.
I want to celebrate
color, how one red leaf

flickers like a match
held to a dry branch,
and the whole world goes up
in orange and gold.


Sara Lewis Holmes has the Poetry Friday round up today.