The Crocodile (Monday Poem)

by Lewis Carroll


How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!



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

Easter (Monday Poem)

by Joyce Kilmer


The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.



from Time for Poetry: A Teacher's Anthology, compiled by May Hill Arbuthnot, 1951, Scott Foresman and Company

Grasshopper

When it's first born as a tiny black grasshopper, less than half an inch long, with a single red stripe across its back, it's one of about fifty babies. It loves to eat the leaves and bulbs of amaryllis flowers. As it grows, its colors change to green, yellow, and orange just like the one in this photo. I took this picture of the grasshopper on the stem of a large white-flowered lily. It munches on the lily leaves turning them into tattered green lace. Come visit in March to watch the black babies after they hatch!

Black Lizard

This lizard was on the porch outside our room on Casey Key, Florida's west coast, where we were last weekend. So far unsuccessful locating what kind of lizard.


To grandboy Layton, who is nearing his three-year birthday, and interested others, let's name it!

Chicago Zen Garden

Bark crackles --
a sharp ironic contrast --
on an arch
curved by disaster.



What do you see? Please share.

Oregon Coast, Netarts Bay

Earlier this month, I spent a writing week along the Oregon coast. It was nearly thirty degrees cooler there than most of the rest of the continental U.S. Although the photo does not do justice to its rocky beauty, I found it a magical place.

Space and time breathe, compressing and expanding. Fog alters reality. Stones reflect weather. Tides change visibility. Shells create memories.

Want to write a title for this photo? Please share it.