Our Wonderful World.19

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

19. Chichen Itza

Dominating the North Platform of Chichen Itza is the Temple of Kukulkan (a Maya feathered serpent deity similar to the Aztec Quetzalcoatl)...On the Spring and Autumn equinoxes, in the late afternoon, the northwest corner of the pyramid casts a series of triangular shadows against the western balustrade on the north side that evokes the appearance of a serpent wriggling down the staircase, which some scholars have suggested is a representation of the feathered-serpent god Kukulkan. --Wikipedia

What To Do If You Are a Feathered Serpent Deity

Wear plumage to mitigate your fangs

to imply flight

suggest softness

Wear scales to camouflage your tenderness

to announce might

define dominance

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Kevin has an amazing interactive poem today at Kevin's Meandering Mind.

Our Wonderful World.18

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

18. Machu Picchu

HOW?

No wheel for rolling,
or draft horse for pulling,
and hills too steep,
with trees thick and deep.

So how to move countless
stone blocks up a mountain?
A hundred-man force
up an inclined plane course.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014


After a week that featured wonders of the modern world chosen by The American Society of Civil Engineers -- the Empire State Building (my favorite of my poems this week), the Golden Gate Bridge, the Itaipu Dam, the Delta Works, and the Panama Canal (I cheated and wrote a non-wonder poem that day) -- it's been nice to return to some ancient wonders: Petra yesterday and Machu Picchu today.

And what fun to learn about unknown or little-known places around the world, and to marvel, day after day, at the ingenuity of the human race!

Robyn has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Life on the Deckle Edge, and the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem comes home to Irene at Live Your Poem.

Kevin wrote a pensive ransom note poem for today. It's at his blog, Kevin's Meandering Mind.

Carol Wilcox's poem for today focuses on a tiny detail to get at the big picture. It's simply masterful.

Carol Varselona at BeyondLiteracyLink wrote a poem for the Panama Canal.

Carol Wilcox's poem for Petra is at Carol's Corner. I immediately thought of the cliff-dwellers of the American Southwest when I looked through the pictures of Petra!

Our Wonderful World.17

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

17. Petra

Petra

The rose-stone buildings stand

with their backs to the mountains

shot by Bedouins

ransacked by tomb-robbers

photographed by tourists

shaken by earthquakes

eroded by flooding

disappearing as imperceptibly 

but as certainly

as the dimming of our sun.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

It was nice yesterday to have a break from writing about the Wonders of the World, and instead write about the wonder of my world. The insatiable urge of humankind to build, build, build (and in the process destroy, destroy, destroy) was wearing me out. At the same time, the enormity of our planet makes our little human scrapes and scratches, ditches and dams and monuments seem tiny and temporary. I am sorry that the amazing city of Petra will not last forever, but at the same time I am heartened that the desert will reclaim its mountains.

Carol's poem from yesterday, "On Building the Panama Canal" is a powerful metaphor.

Kevin's poem today is "Rose City," which you can see in final draft and in process at Kevin's Meandering Mind.

Our Wonderful World.16

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

16. The Panama Canal

PRANK

Snow is falling --

a mid-April joke

not meant to do real harm --

just a jest,

a parody of the pollen

that will soon sneeze up the air.

Bright green grass grins

through the dusting of snow.

Magnolia blooms chuckle

under caps of white.

Daffodils sigh,

sorry to be gone so soon.

Muffler and mittens snicker

at shivering shorts-wearing Springsters.

Forsythia half-heartedly bloomed

only just last week.

Everyone knows her punchline is

one more snow.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Yeah, I know. That poem has exactly nothing to do with the Panama Canal. But it's the poem I wanted to write, and it's the poem I wrote, and there aren't enough hours in the day to write another.

Yesterday I didn't get Carol's poem in two voices for the Itaipu Dam linked in, nor Kevin's flowchart poem for the Delta Works. Be sure you check them out. Both are amazing in their own unique ways.

Carol's poem for the Delta Works is here, and Kevin's Panama Canal poem is here.

Our Wonderful World.15

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

15. The Delta Works

The Delta Works along the coast of the Netherlands are fascinating works of engineering. 

I have a couple of Fibs for today.

The Netherlands

Low,

flat,

Holland,

diked and dammed.

From sea, polders rise:

a Mondrian of tulip fields.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Delta Works

Walled,

diked,

blocked up,

occluded,

barricaded shut:

the Netherlands holds back the sea.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

Our Wonderful World.14

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

14. Itaipu Dam

Compromise

Hungry for energy,

we sacrifice wild splendor,

harnessing the river's power,

taming it with concrete and steel,

satisfied with this compromise.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

When the Itaipu Dam was built, the sacrifice was the Guaíra Falls, the world's largest waterfall by volume. Was it worth it? Depends how you determine worth, I guess...

image from The Misanthrope's Journal

Carol wrote two poems for the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday. They are at Carol's Corner.

Kevin has an unusual poem for today. But it's also perfect for the wonder. The Itaipu Dam converts the energy of water into electricity. To understand Kevin's poem, you'll have to translate it. Check it out here. For more poetry fun, check out the Grant Snider's Poetry Posters that Kevin is highlighting.

Our Wonderful World.13

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

Wikipedia

13. Golden Gate Bridge

I'm photogenic

posing with waves, fog, sunsets

expensive "steel harp"

©Mary Lee Hahn

Carol has a pair of poems for the Empire State Building at Carol's Corner.

Kevin also has a haiku today for the GGB.

I wanted to write short today so I would have time to share some of my students' writing.

For our Poetry Friday lesson, I shared my poems for the week with my students. (They didn't write with me this week. They were doing micro-research cause/effect paragraphs on slow and fast processes that change the earth.) I announced the theme of "Places" for their Poetry Friday reading or writing of poetry and sent them off to work. As always, they blew me away when we got back to share.

We heard poems from a wide range of poetry books:

Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian (the one about the T-Rex, perhaps at a museum or on site at a dig)

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs That Squeak, Soar, and Roar! collected by J. Patrick Lewis ("City Mouse/Country Mouse")

Stampede!: Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School by Laura Purdee Salas (the one about getting lost in a new school -- very appropriate since they visited their middle schools this week and are a delicious mixture of excitement and dread)

A Strange Place to Call Home: The World's Most Dangerous Habitats & the Animals That Call Them Home by Marilyn Singer (the one about the mountain goats)

Out of This World: Poems and Facts about Space by Amy Sklansky (the one about blasting off -- our space expert has read a poem from this book just about EVERY Poetry Friday all year long!)

A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme by J. Patrick Lewis (I don't remember which poem, but perfect choice of books, eh?)

And we heard these originals (among others a bit too rough for publication just yet):


Catacombs

Here I go
off by myself
just a donkey
without a doubt.
Then I tripped
into a place.
It felt as if
I went 100 feet deep.
Then I realized
it was a tomb.
Three cheers for the donkey!
They thought I didn't have a clue.

by HF


Riddle

I am at a place where you can get whatever you desire.
You can have something as cool as the wind, or as spicy as fire.
I bet you will admire
the ones we have hired.
So can you guess where I am?

(Subway..."eat fresh")

by CS


If You Use Your Mind

China holds a conga line,
Egypt makes chocolate kisses,
Home is what's yours and mine,
America has famous Miss-es.

Earth holds land, sea, and sky,
but it would be nothing without creation.
Earth holds those who walk, swim and fly,
creatures of all ages.

Jungles are a line of I's,
pines are cones of ice cream,
snow makes lands of sparkly white,
ice cream that stands on tall mountains.

Liberty is a welcomer of copper green,
the sea is a place you long to see.
Palms hold food and water, too,
all these things are on earth for you.

by MC


Here's another MC wrote, inspired by Stonehenge:


Rain was falling on me,
only one place left to go.
Stone.

I sat against the smooth stone,
shaded slightly from the rain.
Alone.

The place seemed erie,
I wondered if anyone was there.
One.

I thought I could hear whispers,
but
it's just my imagination.

I thought I could see figures.
I thought I could feel hands.
I thought I could hear voices.

I thought.
I knew.

I knew there was someone --
no,
it's not my imagination.

I knew I could see figures.
I knew I could feel hands.
I knew I could hear voices.

I knew.
I wondered.

I wondered if it was my imagination --
maybe,
maybe not.

I wondered who the figures were.
I wondered if they were like me.
I wondered what they were trying to say.

I wondered.
I thought.

by MC

Our Wonderful World.12

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

Wikipedia

12. The Empire State Building

The Empire State Building

A peach kabob¹
A home for gods²
At the very tip
Kong loses his grip³

Fourth in height⁴
Icon of might⁵
Symmetrically planned
Art deco-ly grand⁶


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

¹ In the book James and the Giant Peach, the peach ends its journey with a great squelch atop the pinnacle of the Empire State Building.

² In Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, Mount Olympus is the Empire State Building.


³ King Kong tried to escape his captors by climbing the Empire State Building, but it didn't work out the way he planned.

⁴ In North America...for the time being.

⁵ The nickname of the state of New York is "The Empire State," a reference to its wealth and resources.

⁶ The Empire State Building's art deco style is typical of pre-WWII architecture in New York City.



Carol's "Edgewalk" from yesterday's CN Tower is a must-read at Carol's Corner.

Kevin annotated his poem for today, "Empires Rise and Fall," on Poetry Genius. (He is one, by the way.)

2014 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem.12

I've peeked in on our poem as it germinated and sprouted, but I tried not to pay too much attention so I'd be ready with an open mind when my turn came. I think you'll be as surprised by my line as I was!

You can check the sidebar to learn which poet from around the Kidlitosphere wrote which line so far. Thank you, Irene (Live Your Poem) for organizing this fun collaboration!

The emotional roller coaster early in the poem seems to have leveled out. Our speaker seems more confident and ready for the journey. The journey of a lifetime, perhaps.

Without further ado, the poem with my line added:

Sitting on a rock, airing out my feelings to the universe
Acting like a peacock, only making matters that much worse;
Should I trumpet like an elephant emoting to the moon,
Or just ignore the warnings written in the rune?
Those stars can’t seal my future; it’s not inscribed in stone.
The possibilities are endless! Who could have known?
Gathering courage, spiral like an eagle after prey
Then gird my wings for whirlwind gales in realms far, far away.
But, hold it! Let's get practical! What's needed before I go?
Time to be tactical— I'll ask my friends what I should stow.
And in one breath, a honeyed word whispered low— dreams — 

Whose voice? I turned to see. I was shocked. Irene's?

Our Wonderful World.11

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

Wikipedia

11. The CN Tower

Stand Up Straight

Okay, Mom.
I get it now.
All those
"Stand
up
straight!"s
were your way
of saying,
"Be proud!"
"Be confident!"
"Be yourself!"

I wish
I had listened.
I'd like to
go back
and tell my
teen self
those very same
things.

And now,
as I watch
you bend
and shrink
with age,
my own
"Stand up straight!"s
take on
new urgency,
as does
my own reminder to
"Listen to your mother"
so I can soak up
every story.
every bit of wisdom
before it's too late.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

What a week. More than once, I've grumbled, "Who thought up this crazy Wonders of the World poem-a-day challenge?" 

Oh, yeah. I did. 

One of the things I've done to keep myself sane (and keep the poems coming) is to not write exactly about the wonder itself. 

For instance, when we visited the Great Wall of China, my poem was about dancing at a wedding reception. For the octagonal Porcelain Tower of Nanjing (aka: The Temple of Gratitude), I wrote The Eight Gratitudes. The Hagia Sophia inspired a haiku, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, A Note From the Architect, and the Channel Tunnel, a light at the end of any tunnel through which you might be toiling.

I am enjoying the company of Carol, at Carol's Corner, and Kevin, at Kevin's Meandering Mind. It would be awfully lonely without them, because between the day job and the daily poem, there isn't much time left over to go visiting all the other Poetry Month projects.

I'll make time tomorrow to make an exception. First I'll add a line to the Progressive Poem, then I'll read around the roundup and get a taste of all the poetic goodies.

Today Carol shares an arun about the Channel Tunnel from yesterday's wonder.
Kevin added humor to his poem for the CN Tower by making a webcomic.

Michelle has the roundup at Today's Little Ditty. Be sure to wish her a happy blog birthday -- her little ditty turned ONE this week!