Month: May 2011

Girl Scout Bridging 2011

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The year is ending;
we’re growing older.
Soon we’ll be Juniors,
bolder and bolder.

This year we’ve done
so many great events,
from camping to giving
everyone our two cents.

We started out small
and grew into this troop
that gathers cans and sells
cookies to support our group.

We’ve learned to sing
each new Brownie song
and to care for each other
all day, and all night, long.

We partied at Christmas
and again at Valentine’s,
learning our manners
in a matter of time.

Wonders of Water
taught us how to save,
for protecting our Earth
is the Girl Scout way.

World Thinking Day
taught us about the states,
we tasted many foods and
with our unit celebrated.

We mapped out xeriscaping
to help our new school;
we learned to snowshoe
and sled like no one’s fool.

We’re looking to the future,
to another great scouting year,
to earn more patches, have
more fun, and bring on Brownie cheer.

At Fourteen

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For Jim(my)

i picture you at fourteen
gangly and awkward
bottlebottomed glasses
curly close-cut locks
riding your bike across the bridge
wearing the same three outfits
all summer long
diving into the swimming pool
down the block
and playing right along
with our nine-
and eleven-year-old games

i was in love.
it didn’t matter that you were my cousin
almost six years older
and lived across the country.
you were nice to me
made me feel at home
in that strange and cavernous house
where Grandpa and Grandma
ordered KFC
and watched TV all day
instead of fixing decent food
or paying attention to us.

you rode across the
highway bicycle bridge
and entertained us every day
and carried me on the back
of your dirt bike
on our camping trip
and talked and talked and talked
like no one else in the family would.

i still remember those words
those cyclical wheels
that sent my mind spinning
and the smile you carried
through all that was dark,
the fourteen-year-old boy
who redefined family
in my little girl eyes.

Human Trees

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trees are like humans
she says
they take forever to grow
they start small
when they’re grownups
they don’t grow anymore

they stay in one place
i want to tell her
they’re trapped by roots
taunted by wind
pelted with precipitation
they never stop growing

you’re right
i say instead
knowing that
how she sees the world
could change by morning
and i should cherish
how she sees it today.

Snow Day Saturday

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Soon to be gone
Never so beautiful
Ogling along the route
Windless blue sky

Dancing inside my skin
Always a good day to ride
Yesterday forever on my mind.

Strength within, strength without
Arching back to match the slope
Turns that take us up and up
U-shaped curves that bring us down
Rising without falling
Diligence redefined
Awesome adventure
Yearning for another ride.

Blinded by Blue

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i can’t see
the environmental impact
of the roads
ski areas
and mines along the way.

only the blue sky
long absent
longingly awaited
the sun hot on my skin
waterfalls pouring
from every crevice
of Rocky Mountain rock
and snow still standing
obstinately against all predictions.

i will take this pain in my muscles
to bed with me
as i listen to the roaring river
and try to remember
this perfect planet
we’re destroying

but for now
for today
i am blinded by blue.

Boneyard

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the bones surround you,
starved from the dried-up sea.
you make your way through the maze,
darkness bearing down on the desert,
cold as a wintry mountain night

somewhere between the tail
and the cavernous rib cage
your pride follows behind,
a shadow of who you know you can be
lost in the wilderness of the boneyard.

you pick through pieces of skull,
sifting for the brainwaves that once
put thought into these bits of bone,
the iciness of your surroundings
building a tenacity you didn’t know remained.

your muscles tighten, the heartiest moving
you into a rhythmic undefined melancholy
through the motions of unreachable stars,
and you give in, release yourself to the night
just as Aurora touches your cheeks with her fingertips.

you resist, the dawn’s first touch as cold
as the depths of the boneyard in its darkest hour,
but the gentle kiss of radiant light awakens you,
casts away the shadow you’ve let fall behind,
and guides you to the mouth, the opening, to freedom.

Fitting in a Poem

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i can fit in a poem
faster than i close the novel
check my email
and suck up to Facebook

it won’t be a Frost beauty
with a perfect
tennis-netted rhyme
but it still squeezes into my day

exhaustion seeps in
as the words pop from fingertips
and i wonder why i force myself
to type when my mind is elsewhere

i think of that chiseled creature
valedictorian boy whose life was perfect
who could do no wrong
and decided life wasn’t what he wanted

i think of that selfish email
snaking its way between the lines
of yesterday’s poem
and darkening our hearts

speaking of snakes
like one curved and black
my road home rides up the hill
and asks me to pedal faster.

i can fit in a poem
between children’s bedtime
ice cream enthusiasm
and my favorite show.

but will my words still work tomorrow?

Cause and Effect

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

If you suspend a student
for inappropriate behavior…
he’s going to have to make up his work.

When he makes up his work,
you will mark it late.

When you mark it late,
he’ll probably go whine
to his mama and daddy.

He may even ask for some new
baseball shoes as well.

When he asks for the new shoes,
he’ll show them off to all his friends
when he comes back to school.

When he comes back to school,
his parents will complain
to all administrators that his papers
are marked late.

The administrators will tell you
that suspensions are excused absences,
so…

He’ll want to turn in his papers…
with all As.

You’ll have to fix up your gradebook,
edit all of his mistakes,
and lose sight of why you became a teacher.

When all his grades are fixed,
you’ll notice that he plagiarized
some of his work.

You’ll have to suspend him again.

And chances are, if you suspend him…
he’s going to have to make up his work
and you’re going to have to give in
to the idiocies of our society.