If Once You Have Slept on an Island (Monday Poem)

by Rachel Field


If once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,

You may bustle about in street and shop'
You may sit at home and sew,
But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.

You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse belll
And tides beat through your sleep.

Oh, you won't know why, and you can't say how
Such change upon you came,
But -- once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same!



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

Shell (Monday Poem)

by Ted Hughes


The sea fills my ear
With sand and with fear.

You may wash out the sand
But never the sound
Of the ghost of the sea
That is haunting me.



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

That's What We'd Do (Monday Poem)

by Mary Mapes Dodge


If you were an owl,
And I were an owl,
And this were a tree,
     And the moon came out,
I know what we'd do.
We would stand, we two,
On a bough of the tree;
You'd wink at me,
And I'd wind at you;
That's what we'd do,
     Beyond a doubt.
I'd give you a rose
For your lovely nose,
And you'd look at me
     Without turning about.
I know what we'd do
(That is, I and you);
Why, you'd sing to me,
And I'd sing to you;
That's what we'd do,
    When the moon came out.



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  

Wintry Wind-Whipped Waves (Monday Poem)

Anonymous


Over wintry wind-whipped waves
The white-winged seagulls wildly sweep;
Weaving, winding, wheeling, whistling,
Where the wide waste waters weep.




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 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