Monday, December 16, 2024

Give Yourself a Hug (Monday Poem)

 by Grace Nichols


Give yourself a hug
when you feel unloved

Give yourself a hug
when people put on airs
to make you feel a bug

Give yourself a hug
when everyone seems to give you
a cold-shoulder shrug

Give yourself a hug --
a big big hug

And keep on singing,
'Only one in million like me
Only one in a million-billion-thrillion-zillion
like me.'


from Poetry by Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember
compiled by Liz Attenborough
Scholastic 2001

Monday, December 9, 2024

The Eagle (Monday Poem)

 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson


He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.


from Poetry by Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember
compiled by Liz Attenborough
Scholastic 2001

Monday, December 2, 2024

And My Heart Soars (Monday Poem)

 by Chief Dan George


The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
    speaks to me.

The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
the rhythm of the sea,
    speaks to me.

The faintness of the stars,
the freshness of the morning,
the dew drop on the flower,
    speaks to me.

The strength of fire,
the taste of salmon,
the trail of the sun,
And the life that never goes away,
    They speak to me.

And my heart soars.


from The Family Read-Aloud Holiday Treasury
selected by Alice Low, illustrated by Marc Brown
Little, Brown and Company, 1991