Poetry Friday -- Gobsmacked

I never tire of the wonder of caterpillars becoming butterflies. That's why I've planted two kinds of milkweed and hope with all my heart that someday the monarchs who have started visiting will lay eggs. That's why I planted both raised beds with just enough basil for occasional pesto for us and a small forest of dill and fennel for the black swallowtails. That's why I keep bringing in a few caterpillars each time they appear and raise them to butterflyhood.

This morning's gift from the universe was being present for the moment when a caterpillar who had anchored to a dill stem shrugged off its caterpillar skin to reveal the chrysalis that had formed underneath.

How often do we get to witness a miracle?

My two pages of notes will eventually become a poem (or poems), but until then, here's a reposting of a septercet I wrote in 2016 for Jane Yolen's challenge on Today's Little Ditty.

Heidi has the Poetry Friday roundup today at My Juicy Little Universe. (I'm SO feeling the title of her blog in my heart right now!)

Everyday Miracle

Watching caterpillars morph
from worm into chrysalis
never grows old. Starting small

(teeny-tiny, truth be told)
they adopt a growth mindset --
after egg, it's grow, grow, grow.

They change caterpillar clothes
as they thicken and lengthen.
Then comes the ultimate change --

undigested food is purged,
silk belt is spun, anchoring
caterpillar, who lets go

and leans into the process.
Unseen to observing eyes,
parts that were caterpillar

shuffle, shift, reorganize.
What once began as all crawl
will become fluttering flight.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016

Poetry Friday -- Butterflies

Before

by Avis Harley

The butterfly was there

before any human art was made.

Before cathedrals rose in prayer,

the butterfly was there.

(read the rest of the poem here)

It's been such an amazing experience to have monarch caterpillars, chrysalises and butterflies in our classroom for the past two weeks! They were given to us by one of our building's paraprofessionals, whose mother collected the caterpillars and hung the chrysalises in nifty solo cup viewers. The last of the caterpillars started to make its J today and I overheard one of my students say, "I could just sit here and watch all day!" Another student caught the caterpillar's last voracious eating on video on one of the iPads yesterday. We haven't stopped marveling at the beauty of the chrysalises. Why the gold dots? There seems to be no scientific explanation. Nature just goes out of its way to be beautiful!

If I'm understanding what I have read here, our butterflies might be fourth generation monarchs, the ones who will migrate to Mexico to hibernate for the winter before flying back to start the cycle all over again. This is as much of a miracle as the metamorphosis and the gold dots. What an amazing world this is!

Linda has the Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance.

Bugs in my Hair!

Bugs in My Hair!
by David Shannon
Blue Sky Press, 2013

**itches head**

Every teacher needs this book for her/his classroom. Buy it in honor of all the past, present and future students who discover to their great horror that there are bugs in their hair, feasting on their blood and having a "Lice-a-palooza!"

**itch itch**

Leave it to David Shannon to demystify a common childhood malady with some facts and a whole bunch of humor (both in the text and the illustrations -- my favorite is the closeup of the nit comb scraping those little buggers off every strand of the kid's red hair).

**itch itch**

The Grasshopper's Song: An Aesop's Fable Revisited

The Grasshopper's Song: An Aesop's Fable Revisited

by Nikki Giovanni

illustrated by Chris Raschka

Candlewick Press, 2008

I didn't intend for this to be insect week at A Year of Reading. It just happened. 

Today's book finds Jimmy Grasshopper suing Nestor and Abigail Ant because, after a summer of providing them with entertainment, they refused to share the harvest with him. It's a question of respect, and it's a meditation on the value of art in society.

"Am I not worthy of my bread? Does not the work of my heart and soul earn respect? I am an artist. Is there no place for beauty, no solace for the ear, no hope for the heart? Must everything be in the marketplace? Doesn't the marketplace itself need and deserve beautification?"

Indeed. 

This is not a version of Aesop's tale for the youngest readers and listeners. Instead, it might make a great gift for the artists and lawyers in your life. It's a beautiful little book with an important message, especially in these times when all eyes are on the marketplace.  

Reviewed by Jules at 7-Imp in June.

Houdini the Amazing Caterpillar

Houdini the Amazing Caterpillar

by Janet Pedersen

Houghton Mifflin, 2008

review copy provided by the publisher

There has never been a caterpillar with more personality than Houdini. His mother whispers to him when he is just an egg, "You will do amazing and magical things, Houdini." Sure enough, he winds up as the star of the show in an aquarium surrounded by a classroom full of children with all kinds of curious faces and quite a few missing teeth. He loses his audience to a turtle and a spider, so he has to think up a show-stopper of an act. Sure enough, he gets his audience back when he emerges as a butterfly.

Reviewed here by Sarah, at The Reading Zone, who is the self-proclaimed "crazy butterfly lady."