(after Mary Oliver) I’m sitting in the office space that adjoins my classroom while my student teacher is wrangling with a group of freshmen, and I am thinking about my oak trees. In this stark, small, white room, lit with florescent tube lights, desk littered with papers, student work to grade, a stack of booksContinue reading “#258: Waiting for the Leaves”
Tag Archives: poetry
#257: What’s Hidden In This Poem
I have poet friends who hate poems about writing poetry and I think that’s all right, they can go ahead and hate that, but poets will continue to write poems about writing poetry until the cows come home and even after the cows come home because cows don’t give a shit, I mean they understand thatContinue reading “#257: What’s Hidden In This Poem”
#247: An Elegy for Spring Break
Goodbye to you, a week’s worth of mostly rain with a stretch of dry weather at the end, taunting us, forcing me out into the garage on Sunday night to fire up the grill. Even if I had nothing to cook, and even if it had continued to rain, I would have fired it up anyway, outContinue reading “#247: An Elegy for Spring Break”
#246: A Recipe
A Recipe Mix together in a bowl the following invisible things: Ad no alcohol, zero grains, absolutely no sugar, no beans, no milk, butter, or cream, and no other artificial anything. I have a bad feeling about this. Someone in the house wants to go healthy and I have agreed to play along. The partContinue reading “#246: A Recipe”
#245: The First Poem Written at the End of Spring Break
Here we go, full steam ahead, into my fourth consecutive year of celebrating National Poetry Month by writing a poem on every single day of April. If you are new to these parts, you might be wondering about the number in the title, in this particular case, #245. I’ve participated so far in three years of napowrimoContinue reading “#245: The First Poem Written at the End of Spring Break”
#235: Snowpocalypse 2016
Four days, two last week and two more this week, have been added to our holiday break, the result of some kind of snow event, the first, hardly anything to write home about, the second, enough for snow people and dangerous driving conditions. A few of my colleagues took hours to get home yesterday afternoonContinue reading “#235: Snowpocalypse 2016”
#233: A Meditation on Forgetting to Meditate While Meditating
(for Scott) Walking the dog, focusing on the breath, in and out, in rhythm with my step, my digital meditation bell ticking away for twenty-five minutes inside my pocket, suddenly I realize that I am missing group meditation. I have to breathe more deeply through the frustration I feel for my forgetful self, meditating and forgettingContinue reading “#233: A Meditation on Forgetting to Meditate While Meditating”
#228: On the Day After the Election
Having wept myself to sleep the night before, I got up and went to work in the school house where we met in small teams in the library to plan or do curriculum work or talk about assessments, where instead I chose to color with crayons at the table our new librarian set up forContinue reading “#228: On the Day After the Election”
#226: Orlando, Florida
In my classroom, alone, my senior students out already and a small, manageable list of things to do to wrap up the school year, I’ve got more time than I’m used to having and I find myself often thinking of you, Orlando, and looking at photos in an article, “Thousands Attend Vigil to Prove ThatContinue reading “#226: Orlando, Florida”
#225: On Writing Poetry in a Sports Bar
It’s the Lou Rawls they’re playing, which at first I mistake for Barry White, Lou Rawls and the rain, perhaps, that entices me to stay inside, ignoring the 47 inch screens lining every wall, muted today for Lou Rawls, the pinball machines, sports of all sorts, tennis of all sorts, grooving to “you’re gonna miss myContinue reading “#225: On Writing Poetry in a Sports Bar”
michael jarmer 