SAWDUST

As I drank
from the fountain
someone slapped my head.
It got my shirt wet.
He just laughed.

At lunch, someone
tried to step on my shoelace.
It caused me to stumble.
I almost spilled my tray.

Someone poked me in the ribs
with his elbow.
When teacher saw
he said, "Sorry, it was a mistake."

Someone stole my ink pen.
Someone called me Jap.
Yellow.
Pea brain.

All these things
could upset me,
but I won't let them
throw me
off my game.

I just think
they are 
sawdust.
I let the chaff
blow away.

    Have you ever been teased?  What did they do? Say? How did it feel?  Can you write a poem about your feelings today?

For me to live without hate is easy,

for I have never felt hate. 

To live without love

I think is impossible, happily impossible, 

for each one of us.

Jorge Luis Borges

MOBBING

The hawk sat
upon his stump
being quite the grunch.
He was hungry
and looking around
for something
for his lunch.

Crows came acrobatic,
taunting,
teasing,
daring the hawk to fly.

I stood there watching
and wondering why
didn't those crows know
teasing that hawk
was simply
asking to die.

No, no, said my friend
the hawk knows
there are too many crows.
In this case the food chain
doesn't apply.

Those crows are keeping
the hawk from their nest--
protecting their wee small fry.
It is simply doing a job,
while they're flying--
a trick we call mobbing.

  I didn't know the term mobbing until my friend Andy Boyles, Science Editor for Highlights for Children, told me what the crows were doing. I thought those crows were crazy taunting the hawk because I knew the hawk was bigger, faster and ate other birds.  (Maybe hawks don't like eating crow, though.)  The crows were trying to protect their young.  Have you ever done something to protect another person?  I bet you have.  Can you write a poem about that today?  Have fun.