An early morning transcribing messages from beyond the sky- – a stunning blue spring buds beginning their escape
an infrequent flock of seagulls high above – cry to steal my attention racing the robins to the first morning call
The pen harkens back to the voice of a poet, who the day before I’d savored his own scribed words his father’s voice laced with his own
Writing poems is a service to others gift those poems to someone with the nib of your pen, his lesson Share without fear! A poem can’t wait for perfect conditions!
Braiding his message with that of the morning seagulls cries and the urgency of these spring leaves it all flows at once into the river – my passport to the day
Upon first morning steps outside the front door, my eyes rest on the smallish snow-like pebbles blanketing the ground. My work lately is to attend to these small wonders of the days that stretch out before me . . . distractions from the injustices and the anxieties of worldly events that dominate the screens.
I often ponder at how small one can go.
The sunshine seems too grand. The tropical breeze of 25 above zero (after weeks of 25 below) and the arrival of deer in the backyard all give me pause for gratitude, yet there are even more miniscule moments that go unnoticed, the less obvious. What Ross Gay calls “delights”.
How many can I capture on a given day? To carry me onward with more hope?
Reminders of this practice follow me around as Naomi Shihab Nye and Danusha Laméris have conversation about how these small moments in our everyday life offer us poetry for living. We neglected them pre-pandemic. Now, we admit, they are all we have to carry us onward.
On this particular day, these tiniest mysteries are spread out before me as far as my eyes can see.
Graupel, the internet tells me, is what it has been named. It screams to be a poem:
Graupel
Bouncing snowflakes blanket the ground
miniature Styrofoam balls
formed
in highly unstable atmospheres and
convective currents
warm air hugs close to the ground
cold peers downward
snowflakes tumble from the sky
rain swaths it's melted tears
cocooning the chill of winters end
Shari Daniels draft~2022
I borrowed a few phrases from the internet to draft this poem, because sometimes I need help to get myself going.
I am participating in the 15th Annual SOL 2022 March challenge. For 31 days, I will attempt to write and share a small slice of life from my days. If you’d like to read more of today’s slices from other teacher-writers, please head over to twowritingteachers, who have also committed to this challenge.
I drive 37 miles to work each day, which is good because I can listen to podcasts and audio books. And, I need the solitude.
Today, I listened to a podcast where the host interviewed a lady that died for 8 whole minutes and then she came back to life.
“What did you learn?” the host asks her.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Like, when you came back to life, what have you learned? Are you living differently here on earth?” he elaborates.
And she says, “What if I didn’t come back and I’m still dead. What if this is heaven?”
They said something like that, and I can’t remember the exact words, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day.
I’m participating in twowritingteachers March 2020 Slice of Life Challenge of writing a blog post every day for the month of March. 🙂 To read the posts of other Slicers, please go here.
Islands of My Soul 