Thursday, April 22, 2021

Children's Song of the Earth

Each Year
3 Rooms of Proud
1st Grade Students
in our 4-Block Reading Groups
2 wonderful Class Room Teachers
2 joyful Title 1 Tutors
would
have
a READ-IN/SING-IN
for their Parents & Friends
in
the Spring of the Year
enjoying the succes
of our study
and the miraculous rite
of Learning to Read





Goat Boy by me
Olivia Illustrates and says Thank You
Tiger Boy by

To the Joy of these wonderful students
the teachers and tutors I worked with
and the joy of being part
of a finally literate society
(centuries, if not millennia in the making!)

 with love to Kelly, Summer, Lisa, Colleen & every teacher, title 1 tutor & principals I've worked with in those magically enthusiastic learning centers of WRSD.  And the students, who gave us 2-way love, laughter and learning every day and a great quantity of those parents, who loved what we, and their kids did. 

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Song Sparrow


 Song Sparrow

(Crack Shot, 1957)

 Proud boy

10th birthday bb gun 

No more toy TV Wild West

 six-shooter

Wyatt, Hoppalong,

heir of Roy and Dale

 

Out stalking game

no paper targets, tin cans

practicing for those hunting days

I’d find manly honor at 14

old enough for my own shotgun 

 

Easter Recess, in the large playground

circling my two-room school

ducking under the jungle gym bars

(I’d knocked myself out there

fallen Tarzan of the Apes)

Into the grove of budding

shellbark hickory trees

 

50 foot up atop one

A Proud song sparrow

trills for love, in praise of Spring


 

perfect target

raising, aiming, squeezing

crack

b.b. pop right on spot

 

a loud silence

 

falling    

              

falling

 

falling

 

 

that hush still rings inside

 

©James M. Frase-White 2021

Friday, April 16, 2021

Artist Owl Lover & his Sacred Yellow Cat

 

Dorian McGowan, from his Owl & Pussycat by Edward Lear


A Diddly Poem for Dorian & Glover

O dear dear Cuddly marmoset
So fun to watch your mermen dance
Tumbling rumbling in the sea
Holding, boiling, roiling laughter bac
to keep the fish at bay

spitting suds and bubbles
Jumping up upon the cockleshells
Angry barnacles breathe back
striking out their feathery tongues
begging, yelling with watery spleen
"N'er err to dare come back!"
seething seashell venom
in twisted greenly crackly wrack

They sailed off in briny oyster shell
with oar of runcible spoon
And owl and cat in primate gowns
pretending dreams of silvery moons
laughing gulls and crooning loons

A day, a night, a wild cold tale
a chocolate bar of joy to share
in a champagne bath of glee
Invincible we think all hope
forever and a day!

"James" by Dorian McGowan

 © j.m.frase-white May 2019