For days now,
our Tall One's been suffering through
a late season flu.

I'm aching for her…

Haiku 15
4/15/2012

her fever rages
each soft cheek a burning bush
cool cloth can't slake fire

Today I read to 40-some kids in a grocery store in San Antonio, with a lovely mom-blogger next to me reading the same books in Spanish, and everyone happily munching on Cheerios the whole time.

You probably know already that the good folks at General Mills pair up with the good folks at First Book every year to get millions of books out to millions of kids via their breakfast cereal boxes. And I did say millions. Wow. This is the 10th year of the really smart and generous Spoonful of Stories campaign, and I am so honored to have been a part of it twice — with All the World and Noodle & Lou. 

It is powerful recognition that books feed children and help build whole and healthy people. What's not to love?

Haiku 14
4/14/2012

kids like little birds
choosing each O carefully,
making nests of books

We were lucky enough to be invited to the most lovely, organic, outdoor Passover Seder on Friday night. Lucky especially since we're not at all Jewish.

But these friends take their generosity seriously, so there we were — sitting at one of four long tables — a peach tree heavy with fruit on one side — a buffet laden with love on the other — and scripts.

We read around and around the tables — those who know Hebrew and those who don't, the young and the old, the shy and the dramatic. The words were punctuated by song — from gospel to reggae — all live — and sips of wine and bits of matzah along the way.

Haiku 13
4/13/2012

egg, wine, bitter greens
we are the mixed multitudes,
we have time to rise

Haiku 12
4/12/2012

Bagpipes wavering
right outside our class tonight
Focus flits and shifts

Haiku 11
4/11/2012

ginger and garlic
I know of other flavors
but why mess with these?

Bon appetit, my friends….

Haiku 9
4/9/2012

I'm doing laundry
The birds sing like it is spring
They don't know I'm here

Haiku 10
4/10/2012

The trash truck rolls past
How could we forget again?
Lazy nest-builders

Hi friends.

While I'm writing a haiku everyday this month, I'm trying not to be online much over the weekends, so I'll usually post my Saturday and Sunday poems on Monday. 

Thus, this post:

Haiku 7
4/7/2012

creek water running —
is the drought really over?
all the birds say yes

Haiku 8
4/8/2012

that big, fat, full moon
echoed in the yolks of eggs;
breakfast's a fresh start

We're nearing the end of the first week of National Poetry Month. 

Today's my day to catch up on reading what everyone else is writing and sharing — and you can, too, by going to Read, Write, Howl for Poetry Friday, by signing up for Knopf's Poem-a-Day or Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets, and by turning up your speakers and enjoying poetry read aloud at the Poetry Foundation.

Personally, my yearly April pleasure is a daily haiku. It is both very manageable and very intentional, and I find myself thinking about words and lines and turns and surprises throughout the day. This morning, for example, started early for me and my sweet new pooch. Just us and the moon and a few haiku…

Haiku 6 (plus 2)
4/6/2012

moon hung like a prop
stretches shadows long and dark;
dog raises hackles

blossoms on the street — 
pup thinks they might be tasty
but they're for the birds

who tipped the trashcan —
fat raccoon with kits to feed?
reuse, recycle

We have a teen and a pre-teen at our house.
We think they're both pretty amazing.
Thoughtful, funny, smart…
Tender, creative, full of heart…

I mean, we've always thought that and they've just spent the past 11-13 years confirming it all.

Somedays, they reveal new stuff.
Accidentally.
And we glimpse not just who they are, but who they're becoming.

Last night my teen and I went together to a memorial service for a classmate of hers who died after 10 courageous years of navigating the craziness of Cancerland. He was way too young, and the hillside was full of middle schoolers holding little white candles and crying openly. It was the most painful and beautiful thing.

And there was my girl, 13 years old and taller than I am, tears streaked down her cheeks, walking right up to Liam's mother afterwards — having never met her before — to say something — I couldn't hear what — and to hug her. And then we drove home, holding hands, and she proceeded to do hours of homework and to bake hotcross buns, of all things, until the wee hours of the morning. 

I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how to hold the good, the bad and the determined in my singular self, and my daughter, less than a third my age, is integrating it all, sage-like. I am pretty much in awe.

Haiku 5
4/5/2012

Hair like a curtain
Hiding from math or from me?
She looks up, moon bright.

Haiku 4
4/4/2012

Some things that sound good:
arugula and chocolate.
What? It's my birthday!