Poetry Friday -- Constellations

summer has arrived

chicory is blooming

bright blue roadside stars

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Summer is well and truly here when the chicory and Queen Anne's Lace bloom. Besides which, we have heard the first crickets, seen the first fireflies, and eaten the first pesto. 

We Poetry Friday peeps also know summer is here when the call goes out for Poetry Friday Roundup Hosts for July - December! Choose your date...they go quickly! 

Michelle Kogan has the roundup today. 

The Luxury of Inefficiency

Yes, I'm enjoying my summer break. Thank you for asking.

I realized this morning that the biggest gift of these few weeks off is the luxury of inefficiency.

I have been busy the last two weeks:

• all day math summit
• all day Casting for Recovery planning team meeting
• Children's Literature Assembly virtual board meeting
• July-Dec Poetry Friday roundup schedule completed in one week
• read nine chapter books and stacks of picture books 
• first bike ride of the summer
• reacquainted with bi-weekly swimming schedule
• doctors' appointments that don't require sub plans
• a wedding
• plans for our trip to Germany and Amsterdam
• weeding and edging the back garden beds
• one swallowtail caterpillar raised to chrysalis indoors and two more on watch in the garden
• playing with new macro lens for my iPhone camera (see above)
• tea at Asterisk
• stay up late
• sleep in

I have been busy, but I haven't felt particularly scheduled. That is the luxury I'm savoring for the next few weeks.

Poetry Friday--Reprise

As seen/passed around on FaceBook

THUG

All summer it's been cool
but just in time for school
the heat comes back,
like a big muggy bully.

One afternoon, regardless of the math lesson,
the air conditioning goes out.
Just up and leaves.
Walks out of the room without permission,

leaving the door open
for the bully to swagger in,
disrupt the lesson,
and make us sweat ourselves.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013


Luckily, only the part about the return of the heat is true. (knock wood) We have not lost air conditioning and we are grateful every day for it!

EDITED TO ADD: Got to school this morning...NO AIR-CONDITIONING! ARGHHH!! 

EDITED AGAIN TO ADD: It came back on just after the students arrived. We were cool again by mid morning. YAY!!

Kay has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at A Journey Through the Pages.

Poetry Friday -- My Little Town

Home Town
by William Stafford

Peace on my little town, a speck in the safe,
     comforting, impersonal immensity of {12 miles from} Kansas.
Benevolence like a gentle haze on its courthouse
     (the model of Greek pillars to me)
     on its quiet little bombshell of a library,
     on its continuous, hidden, efficient sewer system.

Sharp, amazed, steadfast regard on its more upright citizenry,
     my nosy, incredible, delicious neighbors.

Haunting invasion of a train whistle to my friends,
     moon-gilding, regular breaths of the old memories to them—
     the old whispers, old attempts, old beauties, ever new.

Peace on my little town, haze-blessed, sun-friended,
     dreaming sleepy days under the world-champion sky.

I'll miss going home this summer...but first-home will just have to wait there in the midst of the wheat fields and under the blue, blue sky (my photo doesn't do the sky justice) while I fully settle back into now-home and give myself these weeks devoid of commitments so I can unravel and relax into ME.

**Edited to add, read this article: The Busy Trap. Wisdom: "...the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love." and "Life is too short to be busy."

Diane has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Random Noodling.

Poetry Friday -- That Moment

That Moment When Summer Arrives, 
Whether or not the Solstice Has Occurred

The peonies are blown.
Rain knocked the petals off
the last poppy
and laid the daisies down on the lawn.
The first fireflies
sparkle the humid night.
You can smell
the grass growing.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016


Jone has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Check it Out.

The call for roundup hosts July-December went up yesterday. You can find it here.

Live Blogging from #Nerdcampmi Monday and Tuesday

JWe know we didn't do such a great job of live blogging from All Write, as we had planned. But Franki will be at #NerdcampMi and she'll be adding live updates to the blog as the throughout the event. This is one of our favorite events of the year so we'd also recommend following it on Twitter if you are not attending.  (We will update on the top of the post each time we update so read from the bottom up!)

A session about writing for The Nerdy Book Club blog by Donalyn Miller and Cindy Minnich.

We love that we can connect with people all over the country at Nerdcamp!  But we also love having time to learn within Dublin colleagues.

Session on Nonfiction Mentor Texts led by Jen Vincent!

I went to a great session led by John Scovill on Reading Engagement in the Upper Grades.  You can access the resources from this session here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_dS9WjknquqGINy8VY40Ss5uoVKBRiNGxy0vmvm9yLs/edit_

Look what I got!--DAY 2

Dublin's very own, Jessica Ardela was the first female to finish the Nerd Run 5K!! wooohoooo!

Team Saunter ready for Nerd Run!

Really, there is nothing better than hearing John Schu (@mrschureads) talk about books!! 

So happy to have s chance to hear Brad Wilson (@dreambition)) talk about digital writing!

Amazing kickoff to Nerd Camp today!  Brilliant talks by Ruth Ayres, Pernille Ripp,  Sue Haney, Lisa Graff and Donalyn Miller.

After dinner, Jillian (@heisereads) invited us to see all the new picture books she got at ALA last week.   Katie (@katiedicesare) and I went down. And we made new friends over books--, Aliza (@alizateach) and Kim (@fins025) Such a fun way to end the day!

Within minutes of arriving, we ran into one of our fave authors  (and fave #teamsaunter teammates) Jess Keating (Jess_Keating).  She happened to have her two upcoming books in her bag--wow!  We are excited about both of them. The third in her Middle Grade Novel series and a new nonfiction book, Pink if for Blobfish)

Marisa (@MarisaReads) pulled out her new Selfie Stick--purchased jut for the occasion!

About 30 of us started off the fun with dinner at Klavon's.  Our annual #nerdcampmi tradition now!

Breathe: Early Summer Edition

All around me, esteemed colleagues are reading and reflecting on professional books, tearing through #bookaday books that make them bubble with excitement, and taking coursework to advance themselves professionally.

I'm growing corn.

And carrots.

And swallowtail butterflies.

I haven't written any articles or many blog posts, but I have had a poem accepted for a new crowd-sourced anthology and I am pretty pleased with a new series of poems (code name "Wishes") I am working on for the Summer Poem Swap (and who knows what other venue).

I am healing,

celebrating good news about our test scores, and volunteering most days for our Summer Lunch program.

It's not like I've been sitting on the couch frittering my time away these past three weeks. I have to remind myself of that, remember not to beat myself up because my "did it" list isn't filled with the same things my esteemed colleagues' lists are, and continually celebrate every moment of my happy, busy, productive (on my terms) SUMMER!

Poetry Friday: Sumer

SUMER IS ICUMEN IN

Sumer is icumen in,

Lhude sing, cuccu;

Groweth sed

and bloweth med,

And springth the wode nu;

Sing, cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,

Lhouth after calue cu;

Bulluc sterteth,

Bucke uerteth,

Murie sing, cuccu!

Cuccu, cuccu,

Wel singes thu, cuccu;

Ne swic thu naver nu.

Sing, cuccu, nu; sing, cuccu;

Sing, cuccu; sing, cuccu, nu!

I won't make you click through for the translation from Middle English:

Summer has arrived,

Loudly sing, cuckoo!

The seed is growing

And the meadow is blooming,

And the wood is coming into leaf now,

Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe is bleating after her lamb,

The cow is lowing after her calf;

The bullock is prancing,

The billy-goat farting,

Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,

You sing well, cuckoo,

Never stop now.

Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo;

Sing, cuckoo; sing, cuckoo, now!

And here it is, sung as a round:

Diane has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Random Noodling.