Category: Reflection

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Back-to-School Nightmare

It doesn’t matter what

the role in education,

whether teacher or coach

or media specialist or

administrator: one truth

holds true. I learned it

in the 1990s from my

partner teachers. The

back-to-school

nightmares hit hard

and on time. The world

of dreams mysteriously

knows that school for

students starts here

Monday, so last night

I was walking a class

down a hall of a

school I’d never seen

and lost them all

on the first day.

They were second

graders. I haven’t

taught a classroom

of second graders

since 2003, but

here I was in my

nightmare, losing

every one of them,

wandering the halls

and calling for them,

knowing I’d be fired

when their mothers

showed up, but

finally discovering they

had all gone to the

library. I stepped

into the murky

haze of the dream

to find they were

all reading books,

scattered all

across the floor

in their own quiet

spaces, not one

saying a word.

And I realized:

my nightmare

had become my

best back-to-school

dream ever.

I chose a book

and collapsed into

the library couch to

read, too

I learned this last night:

when you’re having

a night terror, look for

the library. It turns

nightmares into dreams.

Image generated with AI

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The Lunch Tickets

Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com

we had a third grade

bully who kicked our

shins with her

wooden clogs

and pulled our hair

so we came up

with a plan to

steal her lunch

tickets she

bought on

Mondays for

35 cents each

and turned in for

the count each

day

she was a

child of addiction

poverty without

a mother ~ but a

grandmother

raising her

working hard

to make ends

meet for this

girl, angry at

the world

and not enough

clogs and

shins to fix it

and now

that I see life

from this side

I feel

deep sorrow

for our theft

because we

only hurt

grandma

and our

future

selves

who would

come to

know the

truth

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100-Syllable Book Cover Reveal

that moment when you

see your book cover

for the first time with

your group of writing

friends and hold back tears

for all the waiting,

for all the writing,

for all the hours spent

anticipating

what you always but

never dreamed so real

and possible and

finally right here

here it is, set to

launch September 2

stay tuned for the link

to our stories, to

our wounds, to our hearts,

to our healing words

Cheers for Words That Mend!

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Heat Advisory

we cancelled

camping

for the heat

advisory

so I asked

what we’d do ~

take a tour

of Kroger’s

freezer section?

stand in Sam’s

where they sell

the milk and butter?

take cool comfort

in the movie

theater?

we talked

we discussed

we decided

we bought tickets

to the Immersive Titanic

exhibit in Atlanta

we’ll wear jackets

and talk through

chattering teeth

counting the minutes

back to the heat

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Death Scream

outside at 10 pm

with the dogs

a death cry fight

came from the

woods 50

yards out

we all froze

stood motionless

paralyzed with fear

already mourning

something

something fought

something died

in the woods

we think it was

an owl attacking

another feral cat

the terror of the

forest at night

is every fairy tale

illustration of the

dark side that

traumatized childhood

into needing

another glass of water

our woods are

where we live

and sleep

stuck in the pages

of no happily

ever after for

our wildlife

after YouTube

church we’ll take

the tractor to

the crime scene

we, the detectives

of the dark forest

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Piddling

we piddled together through the mart

antiques, novelties, glove sizers

didn’t buy a single thing

except lunch — (we bought that)

fly in her water

didn’t keep it

sent it back

ordered

wine

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Day 5 of July Open Write

Mo Daley of Illinois is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 5 of the July Open Write. She inspires us to write dodoitsu poems. Mo writes, “I was looking for poetic forms that I was unfamiliar with and stumbled upon the dodoitsu. It’s a four-lined Japanese form with no set rhyme scheme. Its syllabic structure is 7-7-7-5. The dodoitsu is usually comical and usually concerns love or work. Include a title if you wish.”

Mo notes that some consider the dodoitsu the Japanese limerick. It reminded me of our schnauzer, Fitz, who has CUPS disease and has had most of his teeth removed and is scheduled for the rest. He may have lost his teeth, but he hasn’t lost his ranking order.

Toothless Alpha

he’s practically toothless

our aging schnauzer alpha

gumming vicious warning snaps

at badass others

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Day 4 of July Open Write

This day of the month is my favorite – the day when all three of my online writing groups converge – The Slice of Life (www.twowritingteachers.org), The Open Write (www.ethicalela.com), and The Stafford Challenge (a group on Facebook, led by Brian Rohr and inspired by William Stafford). I look forward to seeing my fellow writers in person at NCTE in Boston in November and hereby volunteer to work with others to help set up meet and greet points where we can all eat and write together. There is something special about getting to know a person through writing and then meeting them face to face.

Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 4 of the July Open Write is Gayle Sands of Maryland. She inspires us to write Important Thing Poems based on the childhood classic Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. You can read Gayle’s full prompt here, and I hope you will write a poem and share it!

I so love this prompt and its reach to everyone, everywhere. This prompt would work to inspire verse in grades Pre-K through 12 and beyond. Classic books have the power to change the world, I am convinced.

Photo by Dhivakaran S on Pexels.com

Sparking Hope

The important thing
about a flame
is that it sparks hope.
You can warm by it,
hold hands by it,
kiss by it, sleep by it.
You can see with it,
you can remember through it,
you can glow in it, pray over it,
refine gold in it,
say goodbye or goodnight with it.
But the important thing
about a flame
is that it sparks hope.

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life for inspiring teachers to share their writing and giving space to read the work of all and share the love of the writinghood.