Poetry Friday -- Giving Thanks

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by prettywar-stl

In Praise of My Bed

by Meredith Holmes

At last I can be with you!

The grinding hours

since I left your side!

The labor of being fully human,

working my opposable thumb,

talking, and walking upright.

(read the whole poem here, and sigh at the end)

Whew! Made it to the intermediate finish line known as Thanksgiving Break! First trimester report cards done and sent, we have at least a shell of a plan for second trimester instruction, and while the multiple final and pre-assessments given over the past two weeks have not been graded, at least there is a bit of breathing room to do so. 

I'm giving thanks for breathing room: time for sleeping in and napping, time for writing and reading, time for slowing down to a more reasonable pace.

Carol has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Carol's Corner.

Poetry Friday -- Sleep

In Praise of My Bed

by Meredith Holmes

At last I can be with you!
The grinding hours
since I left your side!
The labor of being fully human,
working my opposable thumb,
talking, and walking upright.

(the rest of the poem is here)

As you can see from the picture, even those who don't have opposable thumbs and walk upright love the embrace of the bed.

It's been an exhausting week. At some point yesterday when it was feeling like the endless week from you-know-where, I actually thought it was Wednesday. Time passed in an amazing rush when my students corrected me and said, "No, tomorrow is Friday."

How time can feel slow or fast and yet pass by at the same measured rate has always fascinated me. Years for a little kid are a gigantic fraction of their total life, and so years are huge. The older we get, the smaller the fraction of our life for a year, and the faster time slips by. Or so it seems.

And the time we spend asleep seems to be lost, but sleep is what makes awakeness even possible. There's a definite Zen trapped in that conundrum...but don't lose any sleep over it! And don't waste any valuable awake time thinking too hard about it!

How about you spend some time perusing the Poetry Friday round up? David Elzey is hosting this week  at FOMAGRAMS. (I'll be visiting the round up tomorrow morning...after I sleep in!!)