So, you all know that old yarn about writing being a lonely endeavour? What with the hours under dim lights in the stone cold silence and everything? Well. One way to assuage the loneliness a bit, every so often, is to collaborate. I’ve been lucky enough to do that with my very brilliant pal Audrey Vernick on two picture books and honestly, we almost felt guilty calling the whole thing work because it was so much fun.

And then Audrey, who is an over-achiever, went off and did the same thing with another friend (the amazing Olugbemisola Amusashonubi-Perkovich) with a novel — which, it might be obvious to most, is a lot longer than a picture book! They each took a character and alternated chapters and — voila — Two Naomis!

You all, I’m hear to tell you, they did it right. It’s a sweet, tender story about blending a family — told from the points-of-view of two ten-year-old girls named…. yes, you guessed it… Naomi! Both of them! Whether they like it or not! It will be out later this summer so yay! Lucky world!

Two friends wrote one book
about turning two families
into one sweet thing

And speaking of weather…

Like a slice of cake
when you’re not expecting one —
a rainbow arrives!

Weather is such a big deal, isn’t it? I mean, unless you’re living in an underground bunker like The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or something. But for the rest of us, it sets up our days to unroll in certain ways. It affects our activities and our moods. It is both the backdrop and the overlay to what we think and feel and do.

And sometimes in Texas, as you’ve likely read about in the news, we do weather in a very big way.

On certain gray days
passing trains sound lonelier
and the ground gives in

My youngest daughter really likes to cook. Like, you know how all kids like to bake? Cookies? Well, she likes to do that but she’ll go for the full meal deal. Curries. Fish. All variety of things out of fancy cooking magazines. She has had to throw full meals away and she shrugs and moves on. It’s pretty impressive.

Here’s tonight’s meal (not complete — in progress) and tonight’s haiku:

When kids learn to cook
there is the delicious thrill.
And there’s the clean up.

We’ll just let these pretty things speak for themselves:

Each petal, a ray
Each bobbing head is a day
Here’s how I keep time

I worship teachers and I’m jealous of them.

When you’re ten years old
there’s a lot you want to say.
You’re made of poems.

You guys? Everyday I think, I wonder if I can come up with a poem that isn’t about my dog?
Seriously. He’s that inspiring. And I’m a sap.

Do you see this face?
Launched a thousand tennis balls
and then brought them back.

Oh, weather.
Weather weather weather.
The weather of earth and the weather of life.
It’s something to notice, to grieve, to celebrate…

After a hard rain,
some of what was here before
dissolves, rolls away

My daughters were lucky enough to go to a sweet little neighborhood school — like if we ever forgot a bike there afterschool it was still in the rack the next morning, even if it was unlocked. Like all the kids knew the lunch monitors and custodians by name. Like, time flew….

But even as it did, one solid consistent loving miraculous element was the librarian — she’d been there loooong before we arrived (and when I say long, I mean decades) and she was there long after we’d moved on to middle and high school. She knew, and I am not exaggerating one bit, what every kid in school liked to read.

Well, last year she retired (I never realized she was mortal until then) and this year, today in fact, that school library has been re-named in her honor. We love you, Ms. Kraal. You’re magic.

Name your library
after a lover of books
and a champ of children

Y’know how when you’re not from Texas and you read about Texas you get this picture that is dry and flat and brown and boot kickin?

Well, let me tell you something about the spring here.

It is PRETTY. Like, really pretty.

The stars landed here
and burst into bright yellow —
What a way to go!