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Children's Literature and LiteracyGlenna Sloan |
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POEMS AND VERSES
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Some people say
The alphabet is magic.
There's magic in writing,
And learning to read:
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If you know how to read
From books you can learn
No such thing as magic?
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The Catskill Mountains, New York State
This is Rip's country;
Science can tell you why
It has rained a record
He lends it his fame.
Yet it has its own tall tales,
Tales of change and loss,
Of fallen mountain houses,
Of dreams washed out
By rough mountain streams.
There is a wreath of light
Around the mountain tops
On certain sunny days.
The glow a trick of sun's rays seen
Through thin air, they say.
I wonder. Don't mountains
Above all things
Deserve to wear halos?
This summer;
The trees on our hill,
Oaks, maples, elms,
Wear more green than they need
To cover themselves.
We strain to see
The peaks through breaks
In this extravagance
Of leaves.
Casualty
The parkway I drive along to work
A flock of Canada Geese
One rainy night at dusk, headed home, squinting,
They say these geese mate for life.
Swings past a pond of sorts.
Half-hidden by trees
It looks at speeding glance almost rural;
But these are suburban waters
Just feet away from cramped developments
Of townhouses;
A narrow verge of grass separates pond and trees
From four lanes of relentless traffic.
Has colonized the pond.
Always near it,
In pairs they stroll along,
Pecking at the grassy verge,
Perilously close, too often,
To spinning wheels and tires.
You want to stop and shout a warning
To these aloof, stately creatures,
Shoo them back beyond the trees.
In the spring couples appear
With their young;
These have learned to swim, to fly;
Now it's time to learn
The pedestrian skill of roadside walking.
Driving slow, I passed the pond.
Near the highway's center barricade
Lay the body of one of the great birds.
Nothing moved but dark feathers
Rising and falling
In the wind of passing cars.
Keeping vigil, on the verge opposite,
One who had to be its mate
Crouched, head hidden under a dark curve of wing,
Grieving.
The Sea
Cape Cod
The Sea is very old and deep,
Dark with secrets she will keep;
When divers try to find her out,
She has her ways their search to flout:
She and her friends, the Wind and Rain,
May collaborate on a hurricane.
Then waves try leaping to meet the Rain,
But powerful wind tosses them down again;
The Sea hides under the Wind-tossed foam
With a roar
And nervous divers stay safe on shore.
At the little house
On old Cape Cod,
We do special things
That may seem odd.
We sit in the sun,
Just sit, and see
The clouds going by,
Or admire a tree.
We make collections
Of cones and stones,
Get quite excited
By a black-fish bone.
We drive to the shore,
Checking to see
If the ocean's where
It's supposed to be.
San Juan
High above the shore
Our building rises,
Oversees the first light of the
Caribbean morning.
Two pigeons visit our balcony
Stepping gingerly
Eyeing me furtively.
The greys and browns of their feathers
Are touched here and there with soft pink and rose,
Like the new day.
Leaving Isla Verde Beach
I sit high
In the tall building,
Gazing, entering
The picture below
Into my inner inventory.
There is the vast curve of shoreline,
Rimmed with gold,
Bordered beyond with a green grace of palms.
In this awesome arc is
The perfection of a brush stroke
By a master painter or
The swoop of strings playing Brahms.
Filling the curve is the sea,
Its color not green, nor blue,
But somewhere between,
Astonishing to see,
Like the eyes of Siamese cats.
Fringes of white foam
Trim the surf,
And over all, the sky
Sky-blue.
I have caught the shapely panorama
In my mind,
Knowing well that the memory of it,
Like an old movie,
Will lack the colors of reality.
Lost Treasure
The sea gave me a sand dollar,
Rolled it gently to my foot.
My fingers felt around its perfect edge,
Traced the blossom stamped at center.
I watched as sea-damp grey
Dried to white,
Then saved the dollar in my bag.
It lay bone-white and brittle.
A little later, sad,
I found my dollar
Changed into bits
Small and smaller.
Kneeling before the sea
I begged another treasure.
The sea thundered as it rolled:
For a squanderer
No second dollar.
I come from
A long line of
Top-heavy women,
Aunts on both sides,
Both grandmothers.
Heavy beasts
Weigh you down,
Carve groves
In your shoulders,
Never lose weight
When you do.
Yet I dare not
Badmouth
These burdens.
They could strike back
In spite,
Get sick on you.
In imagination
I recall the overburdened
Overbearing aunts
And tell myself that
There are worse things
They could have passed along.
At the teachers' conference
She let us know
That she was no ordinary mortal.
"I'm a poet," she declared,
By saying so, setting herself apart;
Less so named, we gazed in awe,
Imagining her sleepless
At her open window,
Or pacing on a windswept beach,
Or gazing at birch blazing in the grate
While calling up
Miraculous metaphors.