She sent hers first--a golden shovel with a striking line from Jane Hirschfield's “‘It is night. It is very dark.’ " I sent her a golden shovel in return, with a Mary Oliver striking line, which you can read here. Mary Lee's poem left me speechless and kind of reeling with the feeling that I'd witnessed a miracle.
To begin every day with questions
is like leaving the house without an umbrella and
choosing to ignore the dark clouds. Answers
might speckle our glasses and plaster our hair, but are
not usually delivered by lightning, not
any more dangerous than the
bone-chilling business
of walking around the park, our hands free of
holding, free of grasping, simply open to the rain.
I got to thinking about how similarly the two of us do poetry, how helpful we are to each other with critique, how our tastes overlap and enrich each other's work (and that's before considering how alike we are as teachers, despite preferring opposite ends of the elementary age range). I thought about how suprising it is that two people who, without the internet and Poetry Friday would never have met, could end up so connected. I decided to combine our two striking lines and see what would happen. Here's the outcome.
Yep, a very fun challenge! Thanks, Linda, and thank you to my friend Mary Lee.
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Mary Lee @A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Thanks to Buffy Silverman for rounding us up this week!
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