Category Archives: Poems

Skills Practice

It’s been a long time since my last post, friends.  Thanks for still being here!

I have a guest author today, my oldest son, aged 11.  He’d decided to practice some of the skills he’d learned reading The Boys Book:  How to Be The Best At Everything, by Dominique Enright and Guy MacDonald.  Lo and behold they have a section on writing poetry.

Here’s his two poem cycle in the nature genre or pastoral tradition:

I.

Storm.

Blows, swirls,
rages.

Will it
ever
end?

II.

Nature.

Calm, quiet,
moving.

Ultimate
teacher.

A Sort of Spring Clean (Two Little Girls Share a Room)

We clean the stuff off of dressers
and out of drawers and find
we’re overwhelmed.
This is the cost of stuff.

Pictures and drawings,
cards, notes, crayon mandalas,
each one a decision.

We make piles:
Keep, Give, Throw.

We find dentist-office toys
(plastic eyeballs),
library-toys,
(fluorescent bouncy balls)
birthday party favors
(fake nose and glasses, and kick balls).
We uncover homemade books, handmade-
mixed-media-collage work, each one
a decision.

A new pile emerges:
Save in the Memory Box

A newer pile (we are desperate):
Find Another Spot in the House For.

A newest pile:
Mom and Dad Decide.

Now exhaustion,
now soccer games,
now bags and piles
lean against the walls
and topple over…

Two little girls
learning what it means
what it means to be
A Work in Progress.