A Quick Note --Tuesday Weekly Reflection 4/12

A Quick Note --Tuesday Weekly Reflection 4/12

I promised myself I would try to blog once a week after the March challenge.
I am tired. I need to go to bed, but I need to keep my promise.
It would be sad if I could not keep up with one blog a week after undertaking the 31 day challenge. What an invigorating challenge!

The workload has not diminished.  Life continues...There have been happy and sad moments this week. I continue to work to uphold gratitude in every moment. I hold gratitude close to my heart. Slowly I extend my arms into a challenging situation with palms up to carry gratitude into the situation.

Since it is way past my bedtime, I will share:

One proud moment:
Last Friday, I was so excited to hear several students from my Creative Writing class read their poems. The students have a true love for writing! They have a true reverence for words.  Their poems ranged from extended metaphors, to using nature to describe a social injustice, to describing vividly a profession.  The goal was to emulate famous authors.

They came up, they read...Students gave warm feedback to each other. Students snapped for each other.  Unexpected volunteers (usually quiet students) added their names to the list of presenters and came up to speak their words!  I was so excited.  I could not hide my joy: my joy as their words reached our ears and hearts. I still need to work on encouraging some quiet voices...

As the presentation ended, I thanked the students for performing without notice.  That night, I changed my regular lesson when I allowed my tired body and mind to acknowledge that students had just finished midterms and needed to do something different. Just as I thanked students and started to move on to the next activity, they said, "What about you? Why don't you perform a poem?"

I looked up at them and literally jumped for joy.  I grabbed my Chromebook. With joy, I said, "Wow, you want me to share.  No one ever asks me to perform." I even removed my purse which I wear messenger style and pretended I was warming up for a race.  They were all laughing with joy.  And then, I just started reading a poem I had written for my 31 days Slice of Life Challenge.

I lost myself in the words.  They listened...I did not have to stop to ask for quiet. They gave me warm feedback, and we moved on as a community of writers.  WOW! What a moment. We are all writers willing to do the hard work...Willing to hear cool and warm feedback.

They were also excited to see a vocabulary word in the poem and the play on words with "in vain" and "vein."

It's 11:17 p.m., so I will simply say one thing I can do better next week, I can try to write another poem.  I will challenge myself to do the Social Injustice poem I assign to students after we read "Strange Fruit" by Van Meeropol. If the students can live up to the challenge, I need to do so....

I want to thank my students for appreciating the power of words.

Here is the poem I had published earlier in March as a Slice of Life Entry:

I Am Hungry- #Sol16 - Day 16

"I Am Hungry"   -  # Sol 16 -- Day 16

I am hungry for a poem

I am

starving for letters

cooked into words

that emit an aroma

of understanding

an aura of love and

peace.

I am hungry for letters

that will weave a colorful

tapestry of joy

to shield the already

saddened from the daily

breaking news of

human hands stopping

human hearts.

I am searching among

the shelves of supermarkets

for words to create a recipe

whose secret lies in

healing the hurt

who feel a need to hurt back

letters to anoint

the bruised hands and

feet of those who have

endured more than my

letters can spell.

A spell of letters

a cauldron of stirred words

that will rouse the hearts

of leaders, soldiers, young men

trained to starve for

the blood of newborns

whose umbilical cords were

severed before their lips

learned how to suckle

their mothers' milk.

I am hungry

for words to rock

to sleep childless

mothers and fathers

siblingless brothers

and sisters.

I starve for words

to lure

young boys trained

to hold uzis

before they can

steadily hold a

pencil to search

for letters to

remind them of

back home under a tin

roof hosting baked bread

a mother's or a father's

nudge

and lots of love, love, love

words to help them learn what

it is to understand, be confused

words that elicit the power

of compassion.

I am hungry for letters to

cast a spell that will free

kidnapped daughters and sons

I am searching in the

jungles of blinded drugged

human souls for letters

to convince and compel

those who hold the gun

cuddled against their heart

to stop

think

lead lost daughters and

sons back home under the

spell of love and safety.

I pick through

the dumpsters

of rotten words of hate

murder, genocide

in hopes of finding letters

that will drive away

the man's

the woman's

loneliness as he

she grabs a needle

filled with poison

a hunger so deep

so blind he

she needs to poke a hole

through her skin

a hunger so gut wrenching he

she injects a needle

of desperation

into her parched vein

now starving

for chemicals

that can exhume one

to infernal heights

just as it can enshroud

one in living

hell

I am searching

in vain to fill the

veins of the hurt

confused and lonely

eyes red yearning

for the next fix

young face already

looking  old not

with wrinkles but

with skin pulled taut

stretched to cover

all the bones of the living

dead whose mind and

soul under a spell of a fix

reach for that needle

the breaking point

the breaking news

reveals the daily

fatalities.

I am looking

for strings of letters

and fortifying twine

to weave a net

and catch sparkling silver

fish streaked with the blueness

of peace

fish that can be magically

multiplied

to feed dry parched

lips whose tongues

have only tasted for days

the bloody chipped

rotten enamel.

A confetti of letters

swirl above my head

like a halo of

words I cannot reach

words that cannot teach

that war, poverty, hunger,

man-struck deaths of bullet

Should cease.

I am hungry...