Ms. Nancy’s Library Blog

“After John Muir”
“Today’s news is this:
the amphibians are vanishing.
Rice paddie and stomach brooding frogs, gone.
Glass frog, rain frog, golden toad,
Corroboree, toadlet, gone. Yosemite toad.
Tiger salamander, spade foot.
Bufo bufo, so called ‘common toad.’
Cascades, Tara humare, Goliath,
Medusa excellus.
It is as if we woke up one morning
and found our mouths missing,
the small wet we relied upon
with inattention.
It is [...]

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“To be a mountain you have to climb alone
and accept all that rain and snow. You have to look
far away when evening comes. If a forest
grows, you care; you stand there leaning against
the wind, waiting for someone with faith enough
to ask you to move. Great stones will tumble
against each other and gouge your sides. A [...]

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The poet Naomi Shihab Nye once asked a class of students, “What have you lost?” and told them to write. That’s what I like to call: “Hit it and quit it.” Today I asked the 8th grade students (and their teachers) at my school the same question. Here is what they came up with. Hope [...]

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Did you notice that you can search for things on this blog? (Hint: It’s the little box there, just to the right.) I just searched for something. I was looking for a poem. Couldn’t remember if I had run it before or not. I know now that it hasn’t run yet because the search engine [...]

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This is the question posed to us by poet Mary Oliver in “The Summer Day”:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Think about that this summer while you’re reading, out in the yard, at the beach, at the park, in your living room, at the library. Here [...]

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My Chicken’s on the Internet

“My chicken’s on the Internet.
She surfs the web all day.
I’ve tried to stop her browsing
but, so far, there’s just no way.

She jumps up on the mouse
and then she flaps around like mad
to click on every hyperlink
and every pop-up ad.

She plays all sorts of chicken games.
She messages her folks.
She watches chicken videos
and [...]

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From our friends at the Portland Reading Council:
———–
Booktime
by Avis Harley
So many places to read a book-
bedroom
living room
kitchen nook
classroom
lunchroom
library
hall
bus stop
treetop
hilltop
mall
backyard
garden
patio
park
under
the sheets
in flash-lit
dark
teahouse
treehouse
subway
train
attic
camper
trailer
plane
seaside
lakeside
by a brook
Where do you like to read your book?
——–
Skateboarder
by Sara Holbrook
Wood pusher.
Curb jumper.
Helmet head.
I could be
sittin’ safe inside, instead
wrist guards,
kneepads,
scuffed-up jeans,
driveway tricks,
and half-pipe dreams.
Softened knees,
duck, jump, drop,
kick-it, big spin.
Hope! Believe.
Grabbing air,
ollie, slide.
Each rail, each [...]

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Pirate Story
“Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,
Wary of the weather and steering by [...]

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“Shoulders”
A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears [...]

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“Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.”
– Christian Wiman

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