When the Garden Spreads into the Lawn

When the Garden Spreads into the Lawn

and tiny blue blooms burst their bonds,

those flowers were lovingly planted.

Blue flowers in my mother's yard

will spread long after I'm gone.

National Poetry Month

Last year I tried to post a haiku every day in April. This year, I shall post a short poem each day. They are not necessarily new poems, since I really don't think I have the stamina for that, but I shall write each day. I won't burden you with poems I think are terrible. Of course, I have a low bar to jump if last year's poems are any indication of what I like. Here is my contribution to  April 1st - April Fool's Day. To my children's father:

April Fool's Day

You were so easy to fool.

Just go to the window, look out, and say,

"Aw, darn it! The sows are out again!"

Your mood would darken.
Grumbling, you hurry to get dressed.

"April Fool!" 

You always laughed.

Perfectly Said by Daniel Katz

I must repost an essay about the direction teacher training is going.

Does Anyone in Education Reform Care if Teaching is a Profession?

Lemont Center for the Arts

Last week I participated in a poetry reading at the Lemont Center for the Arts. The Center gathered art works from area artists and had poets choose one item. We then wrote a poem in response to it. Here is my response to Charles Huth's "Heavy is the Head" which he created to study the intersection of architecture and humans.

Crown of Cement

“Nobody sees it happening, but the architecture of our time

Is becoming the architecture of the next time.” Mark Strand

No clinging to what was, what is,

a moment of crowning and we leave the womb behind.

We use our instincts to breathe, eat, sleep.

Pink or blue, the taste of mothers' milk, every pang of hunger a kind of silicon,

Every comforting caress or lullaby a type of sand.

Neural pathways form and we recognize feelings, movement, faces, voice.

Every fall from a bike, fight with a sibling, talent uncovered deposits a pebble.

Every book read, skill developed, meal burned, conversation with a stranger leaves clay.

Every love lost, snowflake, election, illness, best friend, adds lime.

Every last lonely day, sleepless night, stairway climbed, birthday party, deposits silt.

Every experience calcifies our minds with its imprint, cements us into a prison of thought.

Choices stretch into habits, accretions that impede or abet our growth.

Until at last, entwined by the accumulation of a lifetime, the crown

becomes too heavy to bear. Our heads hang under the weight.

We need assistance to breathe, eat, sleep.

a rattle of breath and we leave the world behind,

no clinging to what was, what is.