We Make a Fist (Monday Poem)

by Mahogany L. Browne


The girl up the block is good at coloring in the lines

The kid next door is great at popping wheelies

My cousin across the street is a magician when it comes to making songs

And my brother is good at baking cookies

When we want to have a picnic
We bring our greatest talents
Put them all on the blanket
And share with each other
The laughter and songs
The artwork and baked goods
Created by our hands.



from Woke: A Young People's Call to Justice 
by Mahogany L. Browne, 
illustrated by Theodore Taylor III
Roaring Brook Press, 2020

How to Be a Tree in Winter (Monday Poem)

by Irene Latham


Enough hiding --

drop any leaves
that linger.

Etch you
message

in calligraphy

across
a prachment

sky.




from The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems
selected by Paul B. Janeczko 
illustrated by Richard Jones
Candlewick Press, 2019 

Me (Monday Poem)

by Walter de la Mare


As long as I live
I shall always be
My Self -- and no other,
Just me.

Like a tree.
Willow, elder,
Aspen, thorn,
or cypress forlorn.

Like a flower,
For its hour --
Primrose, or pink,
Or a violet --
Sunned by the sun,
And with dewdrops wet.

Always just me.



from A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children
Selected by Caroline Kennedy
Hyperion, 2005 

January (Monday Poem)

by John Foster


January is
a clean white sheet, newly-ironed;
an empty page;
a field of freshly-fallen snow
waiting to be mapped
by our footsteps.



from Sing a Song of Seasons
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 

In the Moonlight (Monday Poem)

by Eric Finney


We looked out of our bedroom at midnight:
Now how could we go to sleep
When the world out there was as bright as day
And the snow was lying deep?

So we muffled up and out we went --
Nobody heard us go --
And we stood in the magic of moonlight
In a garden wrapped in snow.

Everything changed, enchanted:
Our garden seat a throne,
The bushes softly smothered,
The trees as white as bone.

For awhile we could only look,
Held in a spell, but soon
We were shaping hard, cold snowballs
And throwing them at the moon.

Tomorrow: snowmen and snowfights
And clearing a track for the cars,
Treading it all into slush, but tonight
We snowballed the moon and the stars.



 from Sing a Song of Seasons
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 

Winter Trees (Monday Poem)

by William Carlos Williams


All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
and wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold



from Sing a Song of Seasons
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 

We Make a Fist (Monday Poem)

by Mahogany L. Browne


The girl up the block is good at coloring in the lines

The kid next door is great at popping wheelies

My cousin across the street is a magician when it comes to making songs

And my brother is good  at baking cookies

When we want to have a picnin
We bring our greatest talents
Put them all on the blanket
And share with each other
The laughter and songs
The artwork and baked goods
Created by our hands



from The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems
selected by Paul B. Janeczko 
illustrated by Richard Jones
Candlewick Press, 2019