Poetry Month Adieu

A few years back, I shared this photo with my students and with you, my readers:

 

I still carry it on my iPad and every now and then, someone will see it and ask where I got the picture. They are always surprised to hear I took it in our own town one day after work.

“I’ve never seen the sky look like that!”

Then there are the times my friends have shared sunset pictures that could easily make the cover of a coffee table book. When they tell me they took the picture the night before, I find it hard to believe I missed it. I was busy cleaning up when I could have been looking up. Sometimes we need a little nudge to catch the beauty around us.

Here’s one sunset I didn’t miss:

Shared beauty might inspire a poem or perhaps the shared beauty will be a poem. Like those found in When Green Becomes Tomatoes, Poems for all Seasons by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Julie Morstad. I loved reading this book with my students.

                                       ,

From her poem

June 10

“ I don’t know much about flowers . . .

but I know how they lean

and bend toward the light

wide open as if singing

their voices (silent but everywhere)

fill up the daytime . . .

Well, I don’t know much about clouds, but I know sometimes they form waves (or dragons, if you have a good imagination), and sometimes they part to let the light shine in.

                          

Poetry can do the same.