Finding a Poem (Monday Poem)

 by Karla Kuskin

Dig deep in you.

Keep everything you find.

Sketch the ever changing views,

dappled behind your eyes,

rustling in your mind.

Unlock the weather

in your heart.

Unleash a thousand whispers,

let them shout.

Then

when you feel

the presence of a poem

waiting to spring

to sting

within you,

bewitch it

into words

and sing it out.

from Wonderful Words: Poems About Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening

Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Illustrated by Karen Barbour

Simon & Schuster, 2004

Word Builder (Monday Poem)

by Ann Whitford Paul

 

 

Begin your new construction

with twenty-six letters.

Hammer a through z into words.

Pile your words like blocks

into sentence towers--

measure some tall,

saw others short.

Mortar each sentence

with punctuation,

then frame your sentences

into paragraph villages,

stack your paragraphs

into chapter cities.

Keep on building

words into sentences

sentences into paragraphs,

paragraphs into chapters 

until you have created

a whole world of book.

 

 

from Wonderful Words: Poems About Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening

selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

illustrated by Karen Barbour

Simon & Schuster, 2004 

 

 

In and Out of Time (Monday Poem)

by Maya Angelou

 

 

The sun has come
The mists have gone
We see in the distance our long way home
I was always yours to have
You were always mine
We have loved each other in and out of time
When the first stone looked up at the blazing sun
And the first tree struggled up from the forest floor
I have always loved you more
You freed your braids, gave your hair to the breeze
It hung like a hive of honey bees
I reached in the mass for the sweet honeycomb there
God, how I loved your hair
You saw me bludgeoned by circumstance
Lost, injured, hurt by chance
I screamed to the heavens
Loudly screamed
Trying to change our nightmares into dreams
The sun has come
The mists have gone
We see in the distance our long home
I was always yours to have
You were always mine
We loved each other in and out,
in and out, in and out of time 

 

 

 

from Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry

Random House, 2015 

 

Prayer (Monday Poem)

 by Maya Angelou

Father, Mother God,

Thank you for your presence

during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

 

Thank you for your presence

during the bright and sunny days,

for then we can share that which we have

with those who have less.

 

And thank you for your presence

during the Holy Days, for then we are able

to celebrate you and our families

and our friends.

 

For those who have no voice,

we ask you to speak.

 

For those who feel unworthy,

we ask you to pour your love out

in waterfalls of tenderness.

 

For those who live in pain,

we ask you to bathe them

in the river of your healing.

 

For those who are lonely, we ask

you to keep them company.

 

For those who are depressed,

we ask you to shower upon them

the light of hope.

 

Dear Creator, You, the borderless

sea of substance, we ask you to give all the

world that which we need most -- Peace.

 

 

 

from Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry

Random House, 2015