We just got home for a long afternoon of tubing on the river and we’re kind of tuckered out.
Small One curled up on the couch to listen to folktales, read by Olympia Dukakis. 
They’re really good. 

But, I said, "there sure are a lot of mean people in these stories!"

"Mom," my girl answered, "what is the point if there are no mean people?
These are folktales. You need a good antagonist." 

Oh.
Right.
Go ahead and threaten to throw the children into the stove and all that.
Carry on.

The school year is over here, which means sleeping in, swimming, and piles and piles of stuff.
The stuff that’s been in desks and backpacks all year.
The detritus of 4th and 6th grades.

The girls have unpacked broken binders, missing socks, and mighty fine report cards.
They’ve recycled rough drafts and thrown away broken pencils and protractors. 
And they’ve shared artwork and stories and poems — I could rent a storage unit there’s so much good stuff.
I mean, I’m biased. But seriously.

For example.
A concrete poem written by Small One:

Here are the words, in case you’re having a hard time making them out, due to the  Evil Eye and all:

Trouble

"Be Kind; Everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."

My friend Sara Lewis Holmes used that quote as a through-line in her amazing novel Operation Yes!
It’s ancient, and Greek, (the quote, not the novel) but it feels awfully relevant still, don’t you think?

When someone yells in traffic or cuts ahead in line or fails to hold a door open, maybe it’s ’cause I cut them off, or dawdled, or played the wallflower. Or maybe he or she really is kind of a jerk. Or, maybe, probably, there’s some bigger pain, a great battle at play, and this is just a little bit of crossfire. It’s easy to forget that. I do, almost every day. But I try not to.

And here’s another thing.
What if also everyone you meet is harboring some great joy?
Or love.
Or passion.
Or at least some great possibility?

And what if we tried to remember that, too?
And there was suddenly just this gargantuan human bond over presumed joy?
How sweet would that be?

That’s kind of what I was thinking about this morning on my bike, having just delivered my daughter at school. I was caught up in the post-drop-off traffic and there were all these moms and dads, on foot and in their cars and on their phones and in a hurry and I thought, I wonder what’s up with all of these folks today? I mean, it’s a Friday, so that’s good. But it’s gray and muggy, so that’s not. But it’s nearly summer vacation, so that’s good. But that means a lot of goodbyes, so that’s not.

And then I thought, but what do I know?
They’re all just moving along with their own great battles, or joys, right? 

And then I came home and found this poem, kind of waiting for me.
Funny, the way that works…

BY WENDY VIDELOCK

First of all, isn’t it a righteous comfort that there even is such a thing as Children’s Poet Laureate? 
Like maybe there are folks in charge somewhere who’ve got their heads screwed on right?

When we value poetry, as a society, we are saying that we value self-expression, beauty and space.
We are saying we value whimsy and wordplay, wisdom and thoughtfulness, creativity and imagination. 
And when we name a Children’s Poet Laureate, we are saying we value all those things not just for adults, but for children, too.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel better already.

So, this morning I’m raising my coffee cup to the outgoing Children’s Poetry Laureate — the world master of rhyme — Mary Ann Hoberman. Here she is reading the delectable All Kinds of Families. Thank you for your service, Ms. Hoberman!

And then, after a good-sized sip, I raise my cup again to the ever-inspiring, prolific, diverse, wise, generous, funny and, okay, downright brilliant, poet that is J. Patrick Lewis — our new Children’s Poet Laureate!

Here’s an announcement of his appointment.

And a lovely interview with him (conducted by our own Sylvia Vardell). 

And another one!

And finally, this lovely poem:

Books Discover Children
by J. Patrick Lewis

Yes, children do discover books,
But books find children on their own,
And then can’t wait to get their hooks
In kids who think they’re all alone.

(Read the whole thing, and a couple of others, here….)

Congratulations, Pat!! 
And lucky us….

 My last school visit of the year was, appropriately enough, at my own daughter’s school – for Young Authors Day. I was given two groups of 4th graders for an hour each. I could’ve done more than two groups for more than an hour. It was pretty sweet.

We talked about seeing things in new ways, since I think that’s pretty much the only original thing any one of us can do, aside from making up words, maybe.

And we wrote poems filled with lies, dreams, and metaphors. 

Here are two the kids wrote together before each taking to their own white page.
I think they’re pretty fine…

Group Poem #1

Ecstasy is like a spacecraft
dodging stars way up high.

Excitement is like a kiwi fruit
sour-sweet-awesome
looking like a bouncing ball,
ready to be eaten.

So loathe was I to give up April that I waited ’til today,
the 1st of May,
to post my final poem…

Thank you all for joining me this month, for reading, and for posting so much good poetry yourselves.

April really should be longer. 
Don’t you think?

4/20/2011

kayak, girl and dad
he fishes and she gets wet
both are radiant

There is nothing sweeter than a Saturday with a bunch of spare hours for knocking around. 
‘Specially when it’s spring and the swans are out with their cygnets and the wind blows fancy crop-circle patterns in the water and a ten-year-old still thinks there’s nobody better than her dad…

4/29/2011

your birthday morning
brisk air, thin moon, and bird song
a happy new year

My husband and I share a birthday month.
I kick it off with a little Aries impetuousness, he closes it out with typical Taurus patience.

And today, this particular birthday, feels especially hard-won and a long time in the coming.

This time last year he was still at the front-edge of quite a brutal cancer jousting. 
(Which, by the way, he won.)
Bring on the bird song…

For more Poetry Friday posts, go here!

And for a look at a month’s full of my daily haiku/haibun, just scroll backwards!

4/28/2011

moth in the raita
shakes the yogurt from his wings
we still eat outside

There is all the worry about co-existing with wild creatures in our decreasingly wild world — 
we’ve stolen their habitat, they get into our garbage. 

But sometimes it’s less complicated than that.
It can be lovely, surprising, funny.

There was a grackle in the Whole Foods today and I assure you, he was not panicked.
He was, in fact,  totally satisfied. 
And then, tonight, eating Indian food with friends, we had this run-in with a moth.
It was momentary. 
Surprising. 
Kind of funny. 

And then it was over, the moth flying toward its next pretty light. 
And we, moving onto a delicious nutty naan.

 4/26/2011

air heavy and green
mounting thundercloud above
and still, there’s no rain

It is so dry here that everything crackles — the grass, the leaves, the dust.
And we haven’t even hit the heat of summer yet. 
Fronts move through and we all stop, look up, hopeful…

4/27/2011

hello, mourning doves
collecting seeds and berries — 
your nestlings coo, coo

My daughter’s school is wrapped and woven with covered, outdoor hallways and in every rafter, it seems, are nests. And in the bushes in my backyard. And in the boxes strung up high on the hill near our house. Baby birds, everywhere… hungry, eager, surprised and wide awake.

4/25/2011

the front yard is dirt
we dug up everything green
so we could start fresh

OK, so I seem to be stuck on the start fresh theme.
I guess by April I sort of need a few do-overs.
And honestly, our yard was already mostly dirt.
Now we’re just going to try to really grow some stuff in it….