(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. It’s also Poem In Your Pocket Day — so this is a small one to fit most any pocket – Kevin)
Day Thirty: Watching
Watching
the painter
watching
the hawk
watching
the dog
watching
you
watching
me
Peace (seeing it),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Nine: One Lost Moment
The dog’s done it
before I can stop him
from doing what he’s doing
— knocking
last night’s dew drops
off budding flower tops,
and I mourn a bit
for the moment, lost
Peace (captured and released),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Eight: Absurd Bird Sighting
didja ever stop to think,
this window, is a frame
and this view, the world?i did, spotting the bird,
wings barely moving but flying,
beyond the pane of glassa sudden moment, frozen in flap,
so surprised was i by the absurd,
what could i do but laugh?
Peace (in flight)
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Seven: Objects, Heard
(inspired by Kim)
I’m falling my way
into earbud air:
Familiar and unfamiliar voices,
alike, in the whispers, working
through the ether of connection;
Whether song or talk,
electronic pulses settle inside
my ears, comfortable as
silence(Inspired by Algot)
Lawnmower music
surrounding neighborhood noise;
the discord of Spring
Peace (listening to friends),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Six: This Remembered Place
Knowing as we do now
what it is we did not know then,
what more might we have gathered
if we had that time again?Your favorite pencil,
maybe, the one with
the short, sharpened stub and
bright blue eraser?Your sticker packet, perhaps,
its neon artwork stubbornly
affixed to locker doors
and desks?Your go-to comic books,
I’d ponder, the ones you’d hide
inside your textbook, as if we
never looked?Or your much-loved pink glove,
with holes in the fingers,
its soft fabric shredded
by tag and run?Every one – all of us —
left without the otherfrom this remembered place
now narrowed down
to panels on a screen:pixelated by presence,
illuminated by absence
Note: I took part in a Saturday writing workshop of ‘teachers as writers” through the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. We started in a video chat, moved offline for an hour or so to write, gathered back into small online response groups, and ended up back together in a large gathering. There were prompts we could use, if we wanted, and I used the “If I Had Known” prompt for my poem, of remembering the classroom space now reduced to video chatting.
Peace (in presence and absence),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Five: I’ll Connect With You
When it’s all gone small and reduced to the screen
when the distance between us is more than we’ve seen
We can still find a way to get on through
You keep an eye on me and I’ll keep an eye on youSo I’m sending out a signal on the video lines
hoping if you hear me that you’re doing fine
‘cause if you’ve got time, I’ll connect with youI never once thought that we’d be here
worrying about each other from far and near
and I’ve got the time if you connect with me
Note: This entry is actually the last stanza and chorus for a song I worked on yesterday, to share my writing process and music with my students, from a distance. And it is all about distance, and thinking of how a real sense of loneliness is starting to surface in my interactions with my students more than before.
Peace (singing it),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Four: For People of Good Will (In a World of Algorithms)
Face it – it’s fake –
this world’s overflowing
with modern-day
data-mining automated
Argonauts mixing fame
and fortune, remixing the game
we think we knew rules to play,
and the question remains
of whether or not we care
to share or take the blame
of it all, to bend the algorithms
or to break them
Note: This poem follows the fourth and final session of the NWP Grapples project, in which we have been meeting monthly to tackle thorny and ethical issues of AI and learning, and society at large, and it has been fascinating to dive into the topics. Last night, we spent some time looking at and grappling with what’s real and what’s fake, but a larger discussion led to Richard talking about finding hope and beauty and humanity (a theme that ran through all of the Grapple sessions) in the connections afforded by any technology, and that “people of good will” (referencing gatherings of Civil Rights movement) can push back against algorithms that either purposefully or inadvertently dehumanize our experiences.
Peace (and hope in humanity),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Three: Rock Face Underside
run fingers
along surface
scraped skin
rough fungus touch
crinkled cracks
mildew molded
midnight-hardened
stone’s rough
back collapse
Peace (after the hike),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty Two: The Seas of This Belief
Keep the peace,
Poseidon, keep
the peaceFor while the Greeks conjured you
with stories of jealousy and lust,
an angry ocean god
with trident armsI remained, forever,
a protector of the innocent
from such tirades,
your moods of spiteNeither whirlpool nor
tidal surge nor riptide
nor dead sea rising
shakes faith of possibilityOnly poets know of me –
the poets, they dream of me –
the unspoken guardian
of the ocean deep, the seas
of beliefKeep the peace,
Poseidon, keep
the peace, or reckon
the world with me
Note: This is the last prompt for the Water Poems Project that I have been doing in tandem with my daily poetry this month, with Laura Shovan. This prompt was to write a poem of the ocean goddess.
Peace (in hubris),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Twenty One: StarShade SunFlower
Imagine
this in bloom –
star-shade-sun-flower
nighttime wonder –
its man-made petals
reaching hundreds
of length beyond the eye,
across the far sky,
its stem connected
by link-line to telescope,
a fully-aware
cosmic beauty
finding light by defining dark,
capturing dark by ignoring light,
the star-blocker
life-detector
planet-collector
satellite
always in search
for something
else
Note: this poem was inspired by work of astrophysicist Sarah Seager, working to map exoplanets https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/magazine/the-world-sees-me-as-the-one-who-will-find-another-earth.html
(Image: © NASA/JPL/Caltech)
Peace (imagining it),
Kevin