ALWAYS TALKING

Jibber-Jabber
Yack, yack, yack.
You talk, talk, talk
and then sass back.

You'll never learn
when your mouth's on flow.
If you'd stop to listen
then you'd know.

 Can you find some time to sit in silence today?  What can you learn in your moments?  Can you write a poem about what you heard?  What you learned?

Poetry is music written for the human voice.  Maya Angelou

I DON'T KNOW

Clo is a girl who liked to say,
"I don't know what I'll do today."
She said, "I don't know 
how to launch a boat
how to row it 
or what makes it float."

She said, "I don't know 
all the nations on the globe
or how to sew a terry cloth robe.

"I don't know 
how to speak Japanese,
or how to measure the wind 
in this breeze.

"But the more I study
the more I know
and the more I learn
the more I grow."

   Last Thursday when I volunteered at my library helping children write their poems for Poem in Your Pocket Day, I met a Victoria who didn't know what she wanted to write her poem about.  Like Pierre in Maurice Sendak's Really Rosie, who kept repeating I don't care; Victoria kept repeating I don't know and so I suggested she write her poem about that.  Victoria chose to write her poem about a place she loves in Conneticut, but the I don't know phrase stuck in my head and I had to write a poem about it.  So here is your challenge for today, can you write a couplet to go in the middle of my poem about something Clo might know?  Have fun with your writing.

TREE

Today I learned
something new
for me.
I learned that a tree
isn't always a tree.

Some trees
don't have leaves,
you see.

A wooden form
to fit inside
a leather shoe
is a shoe tree.

A wooden post 
to hold
lots of hats
is a hat tree.

And a tree
to hold 
my genealogy
is a family tree.

So you see
not all trees 
have leaves.


     My citrus tree has been blooming and the smell is delightful.  But  this morning when I looked out at the tree, I noticed someone had been eating all the leaves.  I felt like Baby Bear, "Someone has been eating at my citrus tree and they ate it all up."
    So when I started to write today's poem, I guess the word tree was stuck in my brain.  Your challenge for today is to pick a word and write a poem about the different meanings of the word.  I'm thinking spoon, or run,  might work well.  Let me know what word you chose and have fun writing your poem.