Not Giant...Yet

I count baby oak leaves among the cutest of spring's babies. It's hard to imagine that these fragile fingertip-length leaves will be bigger than my whole hand by the middle of June. And the photosynthetic glucose factory inside each one of them...don't even get me started on that miracle.

There's a new Rhino in town, a watering can rhino, and she helped me write a haiku for the baby oak leaves.

your glorious life

grand, gorgeous -- so not giant

sweet home for my heart

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

To Make a Forest

Flickr Creative Commons Photo 

To Make a Forest, After Emily Dickinson

To make a forest it takes one spring and eternity,
The delicate goddess of this spring mist and one enormous eternity.
Plus moments.
The sweet moments alone will do,
If eternity is few.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019


This is a "cross-out" poem, an idea shared by Laura Shovan in her Nerdy Book Club Poetry Month FB event.

It is also a magnetic poetry poem. Thank goodness FOREST was right on top in the box!

Happy Birthday, Franki!

For Franki, On Her Birthday

You are an unspoken blessing to the teaching profession.
Your advocacy is a not-so-silent promise that all voices will be heard.
I know you are reluctant to accept the trophy of our accolades,
but where would we be without your impossible-to-ignore drumbeat of excellence?


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Springtime Alarm Clock

Springtime Alarm Clock

Supposedly, time is a gentle songbird,
but someone forgot to tell
the robin outside my window
in the predawn darkness
who is singing jazz riffs
that would make Charlie Parker proud.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019


Here is my metaphor:

And here is Charlie Parker, who I chose randomly, but just learned is Charles ("Bird") Parker.




Amy has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at The Poem Farm. She knows all about Everyday Birds and their alarm clock tendencies!

After the Fire

After the Fire

The images of smoke and ash
spread from screen to screen around the globe.

As the loss of an ancient cultural treasure was mourned
by those who had experienced the holiness there
and by those who now would not,

a pair of girls enjoying a sunny recess in Ohio
searched the soccer field
for four-leaf clover,
eventually finding seven lucky clusters.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Pluck

The classroom stuffed animals wanted to get in on the Haikube scene. Why should Hem and Rhino have all the fun? On the left is the hamster from Laura Shovan's book The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, in the middle is a camel one of my Egyptian students gave me, and on the right is Grumpy Bird. They watched last week while their small humans took the Language Arts state test, and the classroom is now ready (all math charts hidden or removed) for the Math portion of the state test. They know how hard their small humans have been working, and they wanted to write a poem to encourage them.

realize sweet grace

you hold dynamic marvel

you have pluck enough

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Spring's Yellow

Spring's Yellow

Spring's

yellow

follows

winter's 

blue

bringing 

pink 

peace.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Poetry is a Burning Blessing

Poetry is a Burning Blessing

your pen -- the matchstick;

ideas -- tinder, kindling, fuel;

poetry -- the fire

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Playing With Poetry -- With FIRST Graders!

I Went to the Mexican Store

I saw
rainbow vegetables.
But
the best part was
a pepper
reading a book!

©1st Grade, 2019

Holy Moly! First graders at the end of the day on Friday still have SO much energy and SO much creativity! Hats off to all the first grade teachers in the world! 

We were writing a 15 Words or Less poem and we had WAY too many words. One little girl took out four boring words ("green, purple, and striped") and replaced them with one juicy one -- "rainbow." Brilliant! You have to look closely at the top right corner of the picture to see the pepper reading a book. It's a green pepper in the corner of a cardboard box, but when you see it through first grade eyes, it sure is a pepper reading a book!

Playing With Poetry -- With MORE Second Graders!

Pink Piglets in a Pen

You think I'm dirty.

I DO love

rolling in mud

but

I bathe in hay.

©2nd Grade, 2019

Another great group of young poets, and look at all we packed into that poem! Alliteration! Rhyme! Juicy word choices!