The Reorganization Project

 

I have been working for weeks decluttering, reorganizing, moving things in the house, hauling things away,  and trying to find things. I hoped to get this project done before it was time to move outside to garden. I haven't gotten done yet, but it snowed today so I tackled another closet and some organizing cubes since it was too cold to garden. 

When it takes you an hour to find where you put that important document from the IRS, you know it is that time to regroup and reorganize. When you find the bag of stuff  to donate from last fall, you know it is time to go to a donation place. 

So that is what I have been doing....slowly, a bit at a time until it it time to rest. This reorganizing is tough work. It is emotional ( Do I keep it?). It is physical ( Can I move this whole box of books by myself?).  It is mentally draining ( what is the year on this tax statement?) It is satisfying ( Oh look, all the spices are now in the same place!). It is also annoying ( Didn't I just file these papers three hours ago?)

If the weather stays cold and it continues to snow I may get the whole project done! Decluttering the gardens will be much more fun. Sigh.

Hope

 

It is hard to completely turn off the images, the words, and the emotions of the war that continues to rage across the ocean. Today I took a nature walk and prayed and thought about hope. I hold hope in my heart. It calmed me a bit.

Hope     

   
It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,  
it shakes sleep from its eyes  
and drops from mushroom gills,  
it explodes in the starry heads  
of dandelions turned sages,  
it sticks to the wings of green angels  
that sail from the tops of maples.    
It sprouts in each occluded eye  
of the many-eyed potato,  
it lives in each earthworm segment  
surviving cruelty,  
it is the motion that runs the tail of a dog,  
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs  
of the child that has just been born.    
It is the singular gift  
we cannot destroy in ourselves,  
the argument that refutes death,  
the genius that invents the future,  
all we know of God.    
It is the serum which makes us swear  
not to betray one another;  
it is in this poem, trying to speak.    
   
Lisel Mueller

"The Wind" , Another Bedtime Poem Read by Mom

 

Today the wind blew, the rain fell, and we even had hail and snow. As I was sitting in front of the fire with my dog Riley and a hot cup of coffee I remembered another poem Mom read to us at bedtime. She had an old. old copy of  A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Lewis Stevenson that contained the poem below. I still have the book. When I was young I don't remember a lot of wind in Kellogg and I never got to fly a kite, but I still loved this poem and the black and while illustration above. This is another selection to honor National Poetry Month.

The Wind

Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson

I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies’ skirts across the grass-
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all-
O wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?
O wind, a-blowing all day long,

O wind, that sings so loud a song!

Hydrangea in Everett's Hand

 

I love white hydrangeas, especially the Annabella pictured above. This picture is a favorite of mine with my dear Everett holding the bloom. I remember him coming outside and me wanted him to hold the bloom so I could capture a image. The shirt he happened to have on was so perfect as a background. My poem today celebrating National Poetry Month captures the images I love about this flower.

White Hydrangea

White Hydrangeas dance
We observe the clouds of fresh dopamine
Wisping ribbons of scarlet frequencies
That we sense with our mind, body, or soul?
For, we do not know
They swirl around the cord that connects us
Travelling through roots. Travelling up stems.
Tunnel systems for the heart’s perception?
For, we do not know
The voice of cotton is a lullaby
Soft to the touch, warm to the heart, and ears;
Children laugh, children love, children play in
Fields of cotton scented White Hydrangea

Corrina Mae

 This poem inspired me today to revisit my photos of tulips. By the volume of photos I have saved of  tulips, it is easy to guess it is one of my favorite spring flowers. 

Tulips

BY A. E. STALLINGS

The tulips make me want to paint,

Something about the way they drop

Their petals on the tabletop

And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts.

Something about their pallid stems

Wearing decay like diadems,

Parading finishes like starts,

Something about the way they twist

As if to catch the last applause,

And drink the moment through long straws,

And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

The way they’re somehow getting clearer,

The tulips make me want to see—

The tulips make the other me

(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

The one who can’t tell left from right),

Glance now over the wrong shoulder

To watch them get a little older

And give themselves up to the light.

Source: Poetry (June 2009).

There's a Poem in This Place.

I don't need a special month the focus on poetry because I enjoy it every month of the year. What is nice about designating April as National Poetry Month is it brings an awareness to poetry for readers that may not always choose poetry.

My love for poetry started when I was very young. Mom read us selections of poetry many nights at bedtime from a book I still own. There are many titles in this collection that I taught to students and still read today. I also had teachers that made poetry a part of our classroom instruction. I especially remember Mrs. Tregoning highlighting a poem each month. She would read it, we would copy it in our best penmanship, then illustrate it. These would hang on the wall in the classroom. We would also memorize each poem and recite it in front of the class. In October she had us create Halloween poems. Mine was called "The Haunted House" and  I got to join other classmates and read mine over the intercom on Halloween day.

Poems capture strong images with fewer words. They can also help us honor an historic event with rhythm and rhyme."Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." I read and listened to " The Star Spangled Banner" as a poem before I ever learned to sing it.  I loved jump rope rhymes when we played jump rope on the playground. When I was that age I don't know if I thought of them as poems. Poetry was definitely an avenue to my love for words. 

The poem below is one Mom loved. She read it to us many times. Sitting here in the room that was my childhood bedroom I can hear Mom's voice reciting this poem like it was yesterday.

 

I look forward to revisiting childhood poems, sharing some of my favorite poems, and discovering new ones this month. 

The 2022 poster was designed by eleventh grader Lara L. from Saunders Trades and Technical High School in Yonkers, New York, who was the winner of the 2022 National Poetry Month Poster Contest, and features a line by 2021 Presidential Inaugural Poet and 2017 National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman.