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What is the protocol

   one might ask.

What is the appropriate response

   everyone needs to know.

What does one say

  when no words can answer.

Impossible to reason

discern

moderate

There are actions

occurrences that do not happen here

where life is laughter and clinking glasses.

Slow paced Alacrity

does not move with fervor

where bayous ramble deep and wide and slow.

A loner who is not alone

has powers unspeakable

when turned on others.

Apathy converts with vigor

furnishing Acrimony and Fear

like snakes threading their way into steely hearts.

Emotions overwhelm

dripping Confusion

like Spanish moss-covered oaks

blackened with aged lichen.

A new pestilence on the city

one loner is a loner still

among people who wade through waters

deep in culture and belief and hope.

No loner has power

over the lives of a people   

whose stories are swamped in Heritage

of exile and transcendence.

Like Evangeline waiting in the forest primeval

Austerity sits for time  

though abnegation occurs not.

              In response to the Lafayette shooting on July 23, 2015

Barefoot Voices

Although I've been writing poetry, I haven't shared anything in a while.  I don't know why that is.  I guess mostly other things have been higher on the list.  I have several poems that I've not published, so I'll share two of my favorites.

Barefoot in fields

 Barefoot in fields

we planted beans in crooked rows

dropped pieces of potato in deep furrows.

Barefoot in fields

we picked okra and

pulled corn, tied bunches of onion.

Barefoot in fields

we laughed at the thrill of a tire swing

cuddled kittens in a hayloft

raced bicycles over green clover.

Barefoot in fields

we sang songs to a truck radio

ate tomatoes juicy red against green leaves

raced to the end of a row.

Summer freedom is city luxury;

farm girls are early risers

sweat, sinewy muscle, dirty nails.

 Voices

loud whisperings

voices from another room

invisible

shadows filtering light

silent

except when they talk about me.

toasting glasses

kiss the edges of the inner circle

floating color

party dresses form a rainbow

silent

when they look my way.

laughing stories

tell tales of might have been

lies fill another room with excuses

silent invitations not for me.

Barefoot in fields

Barefoot in fields

we planted beans in crooked rows

dropped pieces of potato in deep furrows.

Barefoot in fields

we picked okra and

pulled corn, tied bunches of onion.

Barefoot in fields

we laughed at the thrill of a tire swing

cuddled kittens in a hayloft

raced bicycles over green clover.

Barefoot in fields

we sang songs to a truck radio

ate tomatoes juicy red against green leaves

raced to the end of a row.

Summer freedom is city luxury;

Barefoot in fields

farm girls are early risers who know

sweat, sinewy muscle,  dirty nails.

Busy, busy

I've been a little busy the last week or two.  After returning from the annual La Gear Up Spring Conference on Saturday, I managed to do a bit of sewing before returning to school yesterday. 

That was a blessing, since I've also been fighting a low-grade migraine.  It must have helped to get back into the studio yesterday, I woke up to a clear head this morning. 

This afternoon I slipped back into the studio for a few minutes to finish the little project I started yesterday. 

Remember the little pouch that I'd read about on Carla's blog and then made using Debbie's directions? 

 Well, I got sucked into the madness, let me tell you!  I've completed pouch number two.  This one has a couple of accessories--a pen holder and a key fob.  I'd like to be able to carry both while at work.  Wearing the first one to work may have gotten me into trouble: students saw it and have been begging me to make pouches for them, "please, please." 

Of course they are batting eyelashes at the time!  (Sometimes those eyelashes work.)  Of course, I can't make enough for every student who wants one, but I'm thinking I might make a few and have a drawing.

In addition to all the testing and traveling and teaching, I've been writing a bit.  I like to write when my students write.  This last poem is one I wrote during a recent poetry writing session, but even more so I wrote this poem about the kids who were in my classroom writing their own poems.  Is that confusing?   I hope not.  Here's the poem: I hope you like it.

poet and poem

They sit, quiet

thoughts whirling, brains engaged, hands busy

Difficult, this work, messy, thought-provoking.

blank paper stares back for much too long

pen smudges, crumple, toss.

One kitten curls in tight on herself

but still the words come.

A zebra of lines, doodles, words sits

wanting more.

Ah, aha, awe! more and more

words come—

simile, symbol, synecdoche

connotation, consonance, conceit

archtype, alliteration, assonance

poet and poem emerge

 

Pin it Wednesday #10

Woo whoo!  Celebrate!  Milestone!  

Pin It is in double digits! 

Yay!  and all that!

What am I doing to celebrate?  I'm including a silly poem a la Dr. Suess.  Enjoy!

         

          

Fairy pins to begin
and quilty pins we all win.
One pin, two pins, pin again
happy pins, scary pins to attain.
Sing, dance, juggle and jog
chickens, barns, horses and hog
There's a pin, there's a pin, there's a pin!    


         
  




 Red pins, blue pins, green ones, too.
Maybe we should pin a zoo.
Lily, rose, myrtle, daisy,
There's a pin, there's a pin, there's a pin!
but after those some pins get hazy.

                                                                                                                                               

 

Places, faces, graces galore
there's just so much for us to adore.
Every thing that you might want
Every place that you might haunt
Every way to take a jaunt
There's a pin, there's a pin, there's a pin!




 

 

           


               


 Chocolate, candies, cakes and cream
 so much fat that you might scream.
Can't sleep?  Take a peep.
Need a doc?  It's how to wait.
On the run, while you wait, 
unless you read, it's all you need.
Books, schools, funnies, rules
There's a pin, there's a pin, there's a pin!   

        
                
   

  

Another poem from me.

I Celebrate this Place


If you would find yourself, look to the land
you come from and to which you go.
            -Walt Whitman


Water moves slowly,
human eyes and the duck weed cannot sense its rhythm.
An alligator moves, making duck weed tracks,
brown water curving around stumps and cypress trees.


An gros bec, a great beaked-bird, swoops down on a dragonfly
feasting on mosquitoes,
its grayish brown feathers move silently through the heavy, hot air.


Cypress trees tower overhead,
a safe haven for birds, squirrels, and opossums,
their greenness turning
brown like slow cooked roux melting into the heat.


I celebrate this place,
the quiet peacefulness,
nature's respite from all things
modern or moving.


I celebrate this place,
the soft bird song,
the drab muted tones of nature,
the soft sticky smell of summer.


(From sometime in the early 90's)

Writing and Poetry

As a writer, I've had wonderful opportunities to meet and work with colleagues and teachers through the Acadiana Writing Project.  The AWP is a supportive group of writers at the University of Louisiana - Lafayette who were instrumental in my growth from a classroom English teacher to a  writing instructor at Louisiana State University at Alexandria.  


I've given presentations throughout the southern part of Louisiana, at several state conferences and at the National Association of English Teachers.  In these presentations I not only model writing for other teachers and give them lessons and ideas for their classrooms, I model my own writing.  Sitting down with pen and paper or computer when they do and composing something, anything that I would be willing to share with my peers.  


The following poem is one of those somethings.  I'll share a few more of my poems in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this one.  Please leave a message either way, I'd love to hear from you.



Categorical Aftermath

Camille, Andrew, Charley, Ivan, Frances, Hugo, Jeanne, Katrina

Lettered. Numbered. Categorized. Alphabetized.

Twist their way into human memory.

Turn their wrath on human lives.

Entwine the human psyche.

Devastation of

Shattered lives

Drowning in mementos,

Coffered in attics.

Hunger thirst death

Take their toll,

Count their rations.

Wind, water, heat

Spin into

Mother Earth’s Darwinist theory

Force

Elders, illness, infants into weaklings,

Survival reliant on instinct and ability.

Faith, hope, dreams

Become ruins

Build into communities of desperation,

Buttress the losses,

Befit that restoration.

Cities rising like Phoenix burned.

Return.

Rebuild.

Restore.

Renew.

Human spirit.

Human lives.

Human survival.