Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Nine Ways of Looking at a Pebble

after Wallace Stevens

          I
A pebble on a beach:
one galaxy among many,
in a universe of sand.

          II
What do you see under your feet?
The gravel, or the quartz?

          III
A pebble on the ground
is a rock.
A pebble in a sling
is the fall of a mighty warrior.

          IV
The eye of the mountain
watches each of us
through the pebble.

          V
Within each seed
lies hidden the mighty oak
of a boulder.

          VI
Infinite shades of gray
in an infinitesimal space.

          VII
Erosion,
the ultimate egalitarian,
reduces us all,
in the end,
to pebbles.

          VIII
Fully present in every moment,
I am held in complete awareness
by the mere existence of a pebble
beneath a thousand mattresses.

          IX
From what mountain,
what lofty peak,
has this pebble fallen?
From what heights
has my own soul
descended?

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Middle School Pantoum

Our schedule is very easy:
Each minute is precisely timed,
and just in case it makes you queasy,
we’ve found a way to make it rhyme.

Each minute is precisely timed:
We’re doing Language Arts today,
and finding ways to make it rhyme.
At snack time we go out to play,

We’re doing Language Arts today,
and might just take a vocab test.
At snack time we go out to play,
then Understanding People’s next.

We might just take a vocab test,
but first we have to do some Art,
then Understanding People’s next.
Guitar and keyboard classes start,

but only after we have Art,
and Spanish also, once a week.
Guitar and keyboard classes start
to make my Math class sound like Greek.

Our Spanish class is once a week,
and though it might just make you queasy,
our Math class sounds a bit like Greek,
but the schedule’s really very easy.