Smoke in Our Hair (Monday Poem)

 By Ofelia Zepeda

 

The scent of burning wood holds
the strongest memory.
Mesquite, cedar, piñon, juniper,
all are distinct.
Mesquite is dry desert air and mild winter.
Cedar and piñon are colder places.
Winter air in our hair is pulled away,
and scent of smoke settles in its place.
We walk around the rest of the day
with the aroma resting on our shoulders.
The sweet smell holds the strongest memory.
We stand around the fire.
The sound of the crackle of wood and spark
is ephemeral.
Smoke, like memories, permeates our hair,
our clothing, our layers of skin.
The smoke travels deep
to the seat of memory.
We walk away from the fire;
no matter how far we walk,
we carry this scent with us.
New York City, France, Germany—
we catch the scent of burning wood;
we are brought home.
 

from Where Clouds Are Formed by Ofelia Zepeda

University of Arizona Press, 2008

Silverly (Monday Poem)

 by Dennis Lee

Silverly,

Silverly,

Over the

Trees

The moon drifts

By on a

Runaway 

Breeze.

Dozily,

Dozily,

Deep in her

Bed,

A little girl

Dreams with the

Moon in her

Head.

from Poetry By Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember 

compiled by Liz Attenborough

Scholastic, 2001

A Poison Tree (Monday Poem)

 

By William Blake

 

I was angry with my friend; 
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe: 
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears: 
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night. 
Till it bore an apple bright. 
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole, 
When the night had veiled the pole; 
In the morning glad I see; 
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

 

from PoetryOutLoud.org

Little Wind (Monday Poem)

by Kate Greenaway

 

 

Little wind, blow on the hill-top,

Little wind, blow on the plain;

Little wind, blow up the sunshine;

Little wind, blow off the rain.

 

 

from Poetry By Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember 

compiled by Liz Attenborough

Scholastic, 2001 

The Summer Day (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

 

 

 

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, by Mary Oliver

Penguin Random House, 2017

Summer Goes (Monday Poem)

 by Russell Hoban

Summer goes, summer goes

Like the sand between my toes

When the waves go out.

That's how summer pulls away,

Leaves me standing here today,

Waiting for the school bus.

Summer brought, summer brought

All the frogs that I have caught,

Frogging at the pond,

Hot dogs. flowers, shells and rocks,

Postcards in my postcard box--

Places far away.

 

Summer took, summer took

All the lessons in my book,

Blew then far away.

I forgot the things I knew--

Arithmetic and spelling too,

Never thought about them.

 

Summers gone, summers gone--

Fall and winter coming on,

Frosty in the morning.

Here's the school bus right on time.

I;m not really sad that I'm

Going back to school.

 

 

from The Famiily Read-Aloud Holiday Treasury

Selected by Alice Low

Little Brown & Company Inc, 1991

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

When the blackberries hang

swollen in the woods, in the brambles

nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high

branches, reaching

my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming

the black honey of summer

into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark

creeks that run by there is

this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is

this happy tongue.

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, by Mary Oliver

Penguin Random House, 2017