Writing Down a Dream poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit lovely Linda at TeacherDance for Roundup.

Be sure to check out some wonderful poems by wonderful teachers over at Ethical ELA inspired by This Poem is a Nest. Beautiful and inspiring!

Also, have you heard about this latest course from James Crews and Danusha Lameris? Tending the Heart. I'm thinking about it! (There is also a 20% discount found here.)

Today's ArtSpeak: LIGHT poem is for those poets among us who like to daydream! Thanks so much for reading.

Writing Down a Dream

I dream in poems
like the light
of a gauzy morning
windowpane
that still remembers
dappled night.

I skip the well-trod roads,
choose an untamed lane
that doubles back,
swerves left,
         scoots right—

All the while
my heart drops
breadcrumbs
for my brain.

- Irene Latham

when you are weary from carrying the weight of the world poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit marvelous Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone for Roundup.

So...how's August treating you? I'm enjoying the less hectic days for sure!

Today's ArtSpeak: LIGHT poem revisits Diego Rivera's lily series. Back in 2019 during my HAPPY! year, I wrote a poem called "The Weight of Happiness" after a different piece. Here it is:

And here is today's poem, after the only painting in the series that includes more than one person. (Of course I had to bring that detail into my poem!) Thanks so much for reading.

when you are weary from carrying the weight of the world

remember how easily lilies
carry light

the next time you strap
a bundle to your back

let it bend you

and when someone offers
to help

say yes

- Irene Latham

We Are Cloud Climbers poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit terrific Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference for Roundup.

For those stitcher-poets and Sealey Challenge folks among us: have you read I Lay My Stitches Down Poems of American Slavery  by Cynthia Grady, illus. by Michele Wood? It's a beauty of blank verse poems, and it just this week released in paperback! Be sure to check it out.

I rescued a quilt the other day (from a thrift store!), and I am in love with both the fabric and the amazing hand-stitching. If I had to name it, I'd call it "Blue Sky in Blossom." What a treasure!

I've been craving a change of scenery, so today's ArtSpeak: LIGHT poem moves into the city, to a busy construction site! Don't you love how our writing (and art!) can so easily transport us? 

We Are Cloud Climbers

we carry drills
and drivers,
we scale beams
that claw the sky

our bodies stretch,
              fold
as we toil
to the clang-buzz-blast
of progress

for builders like us,

day both thins
and billows

we lunch on sunlight,
we hang our dreams
on pigeon wings

- Irene Latham

Impression of a Sunrise in August (poem)

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit marvelous Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading for Roundup.

It's August! After a July that has sweltered like August... we'll see what this month holds!

What August won't be holding is the release of The Moon is a Museum: The Curious Objects on the Lunar Surface. Due to printing delays, the pub date has been moved (from August 8) to September 19. 

This is actually really cool, because Moon will be my 19th children's book! 

It feels meant to be, doesn't it?

Meanwhile I've had an exciting week of day trips with some of my favorites: Monday to Fayette, Alabama, with son Eric, who is helping me with some book research; Tuesday to Hanceville, Alabama, with dear friend Pat, to celebrate her birthday; Thursday to Chattanooga with my mom to meet up with my sister-brother-niece-and all the kiddos! Yes, my heart is up there in the sky somewhere. :)

Today's ArtSpeak: LIGHT poem is after the piece of art that started a movement: Claude Monet's "Impression-Sunrise," from which the "Impressionists" got their name. I instantly thought: sunrise...morning...love poem...aubade!...but I decided to call it "Impression" (instead of "Aubade") as a nod to the painting. 

Also, an aubade is traditionally a poem about lovers parting, and I wanted these lovers to somehow still be together. Thanks so much for reading.

Impression

you are sun
and I am sea

warm,
drifting

reaching
across sky and time

we steal into every boat,

we flood each face

- Irene Latham