Patience, Persistance, and A Room With a View

"Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass,

I can appreciate persistence." Unknown

This is a view from my classroom window. In early morning I can enjoy the quietness of the basketball courts before the students show up to play a little three-on-three before class. I can breathe in the fresh morning smell of grass and pine. I can feel the warmth of the early morning sun if I step out from the shadows. The quote above fits perfectly as I reflect on recent teaching days.We know our trees and have learned patience as we have learned and grown together in this room. Each of us has also learned persistence. As we wrap up the final days of our state testing tomorrow and Wednesday persistence has been something I have observed over and over as each class has done their testing.
Tomorrow as my students are bubbling in answers, I will gaze out the window and think of the grass which is as persistent as they are. Both need nourishment, sunshine, and water to thrive! The students also need some patience and encouragement. My classroom is in the "other building" away from the main school building. I feel blessed to have an older, larger classroom with windows and a view I can appreciate four seasons of the year.

National Poetry Month #23: Post #100

When I began my blog on February 11,2007 my goal was to post each day. I surpassed my goal and reached a milestone today. Enjoy post #100!Yard Sale

Gold-plate goblets freckled
with tarnish, disconsolate
pajamas, infant shoes, curling
irons, somebody’s ancient

block flute, a candlestick grove,
bakelite coasters, egg poachers,
7 rubber sandals. Scruffy dolls
and accessories, board games

from whose battered boxes
children still look up with glee.
Two bald lamps, a basketball
and dumbbells, a toaster’s chrome

full of early leaves, and tilted
like a grimy satellite inside
a crate, a two-stroke engine.
Now at last admitted to my

neighbor’s back lawn, which
I’ve longed to cut across for years.
I see a tuft of grass and violets,
violets, growing, up in that
elm’s clavicle, a little island
world in the air, where the trunk
divides. I wouldn’t know how
to tell her of the delight I find

in this. But I think I’ll buy that
small stack of teaspoons, just
so I can linger, picking up this
language, whose every word has

finally toppled over in one case
or tense or mood. Everything as is.

- Robert Farnsworth