30 Days of Poetry: Day One

My Facebook friend Sarah Donovan is running a poetry challenge on her blog over at Ethical ELA. I was pretty inspired by the idea, and I had been playing with the idea of doing a poetry challenge for April, so I will be spending the next 30 (ish) days posting a poem each day. Hopefully most will be original creations, but I may share some favorites as well. I even bought a great new composition book to host my scribbled sloppy copies (yay for new office supplies).

Such a pretty cover... I ❤ composition books

So without further ado... Here's Day One.

The Best Part of Me

My husband

Calls me stubborn.

I prefer tenacious.

I get it honest.

My great-grandparents built the beginnings of a farm

in 1902

for seven hundred dollars.

It was an astronomical expense.

"You'll never pay it off," people said.

"You're going to fail."

In 2012 

we celebrated the 110-year anniversary

of their "failure":

Mountain View Farm,

run continuously by 3 generations of the Stout family.

Tenacious.

In 1999,

my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

"Maybe five, six, years at the most," the doctors said.

"The kind of work you do? You just can't

expect to continue working 

with your condition."

In 2013,

he finally went on disability.

He worked as a line mechanic

until the day he came home

for good.

Tenacious.

In 2016, 

I bought around 300 books for my students.

"They'll never read," my colleagues said.

"You're wasting your money

and your time. Some kids

just aren't readers."

I drop books on their desks anyway.

We read anyway.

This year, they are readers anyway.

I get it honest.

Tenacious.