one a day

Ok with 1 blog a day there will be no perfection but there will be ideas to play with in the future. So this will be more diary like but I will play with language.

3:11 am

Starts with a twitch,
a roll,
tightening to knots...
the cramp grips the calf.

I wait.

Will it ease
or escalate?

It always escalates
why do I bother to lie
and wish for sleep?
It won't come.


The pain that starts mid calf,
travels to the arch
Reminiscent of downward facing dog and forward fold.

Just as the ache from head to child
planks my adult
board like
and stiff.

To tighten
the muscle
heart
requires the stretch
to rebound and snap with tectonic
plates
shatter
pieces
of my debris.

I grasp
tight
but leaks in cracks
seep
ooze
break loose.

I roll to floor
hobble to gulp magnesium
turn up the heat
lay the leg flat
and think
of past actions.

I'd text you sorry
but what good would that do?

The strength I need comes with practice.
Warrior 1 shifts to Warrior 2.
I know it will be easy someday
and my legs won't cramp at 3 am ..

Holes in the brain

"Bit #1 is to remember that students from poverty’s brains do not function like non-poverty students. They actually have holes in their brains from the stressors of their life. IT is very important for us to keep their stress levels down so that their cortisol levels allow them to think. Eric Jensen’s presentation was very powerful and amazing. There is actual MRI pictures that show a stressed out brain vs. a non-stressed out brain. WE have to keep our classrooms stress free for our students and ourselves. (No wonder I get so forgetful in my most stressed out days- my brain has holes in it!)"

Who keeps our stress levels down? The district piles more and more on us each day to teach with no paid prep time. We have holes in our brains too.

I love the brain research and believe it, but they are killing us with their expectations of our day.

As a teacher I need to build in balance in my day and take care of myself so I can take care of my very needy poverty students.

So many shootings in the Rogue Valley last week. No wonder students did not want to go home!

Diving into the Wrack- a work in progress and in honor of Adrienne Rich

First having read the Book of Life
and packed the sand bucket,
and tested the surface of the shovel
I put on
the waterproof slick coat
the chunky boots
the heart and polar scarf.
I am doing this
not like the Ugliest Catch
with their scraggy-haired crew
aboard tower tossed seas
but here alone.

There is a tangle
of kelp
the kelp is always there,
piled hazordously
at the high water mark

I know where it is from,
I've aways known
somehow-
it reeks of death
and teams with orange plastic rope

I bend, touch the slime,
pulling strands of nylon, still
the tangle remains
the rot envelopes me
green bulbs
of kelp
bladder of ocean air

I scrabble
my scarf entwines weed
I burrow like dogs digging treasure
and no one tells me
where the sand
will begin...


to be finished at a later date....

Adrienne Rich

I learned this week that Adrienne Rich died this past week. In college in the late 70's she was my favorite poet. I dug out her books to go over the poems I remembered. "Diving into a Wreck" and "Orion" were the two I remembered the most.

I have a different world view now than I had in the 70's. Even though I don't especially agree with her world view, I am still so terribly impressed with the preciseness of the language she chose. Such power! I wonder if I will ever have such a command of language?

Back in 1979 when I was doing my senior project, writing poetry with Dr. Dan Daniels as my advisor, he had me write in the style of several poets. It was a great exercise in understanding meter, imagery, and metaphor. So in honor of Adrienne Rich I have started my own "Diving into the Wreck" but to fit my theme this year it is "Diving into the Wrack". (Wrack being seaweed and other vegetation cast upon the shore)

Idols

Thinking about the idols in my life- the things I put before God....

When does it get easier?

It seems
so easy for you
a keystroke
a page
a meditation

While I wallow
in fantasy
angst
and regrets

your clay masks
you display
the wolf
the Madi Gra
you know in New Orleans

I can't spell
I can't quite
get over

you....