Poem a Day: Lackadaisical Blues

-
Related image

lackadaisical blues

she smiles slowly--
                                  opening her arms to embrace the sun
                                  yawning with the soft
                                  languid kisses of summer warmth

she is lying in a field--
                                  desiring the sun with all her might
                                  stretching lazily and reaching
                                  toward the skies

she is worthless--
                                  lazy, good-for-nothing, lethargic
                                  barefooted music maker
                                  happily starving artist

on an empty stage--
                                  her smile holds the sun for awhile
                                  light reflects in song
                                  pure lackadaisical

I just finished reading For Everyone by Jason Reynolds. It's about chasing your dreams. Singing was always mine. I wanted to perform, wanted to be onstage, but life had other plans. I wrote this as a response to some things I have heard about myself...I am lazy, I do tend to be lethargic, and I am definitely lackadaisical (I love that word). So this poem is to try and put a positive spin on what was a very negative experience. I may never perform much onstage, but that won't stop me from singing on my own whenever I want to! I still have my dream. Thanks for the reminder, Jason. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slice of Life 1: When the World Hates You

-
Image
For the month of March, I'll be writing with the  Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge . This is my first year participating in SoL! I am excited and optimistic about it! So here goes nothing... My son is a sixth grader at the middle school I work at this year. It's a whole new adventure having a child in middle school, and at the same school as me! Some days we both ride home in total silence, but this past Monday, he wanted to talk to me about his dodgeball experience in PE. This is his first semester having PE, and he seems to have mixed feelings about it. (I did too in middle school.) Our conversation started with, "Mom, I think the world hates me." "Well that's an awful thing to say. Why would you think that?" "Today in PE we were playing dodgeball. I threw and threw and threw and I never could hit that stupid cone! And then, FINALLY, I hit it. I wasn't even aiming for it; I was throwing it at a kid. But when I hit it, i
Read more

The Gradeless Classroom: A Feedback Hack

-
Image
As the school year settles into full swing and I find myself more and more immersed in the planning, creating, assessing, and reevaluating of the daily flow of my lessons, I start to feel the pressure of feedback building up on me. I know that the value of learning in my gradeless classroom is much higher than it used to be. I believe that the feedback I give my students is making them into more successful ELA students. But there are so many days I look at the towering pile of work that requires feedback, and I just feel completely inadequate. There are not enough hours, not enough patience, not enough me to go around for all of them. Some days it feels like it would just be so much easier to give a ten-question multiple choice test, run it on the Scantron or through Schoolnet, and call it good. I think these things in my moments of weakness, but I know that I could never be satisfied with that type of assessment for the deep learning I want to happen in my classroom. I know that stu
Read more