Poem #341 Remembers What it Used to Be

Henry Sands His Gourd

Photo by Amy LV

Hope Waits for Chickadees

Photo by Amy LV

Today's poem is dedicated to Brittany Bruce's kindergarten students at Calvin Coolidge Elementary School in Binghamton, NY.  I visited their school in February, and the students and I played a little "I used to be" game, remembering which animals we each "used to be."  

Brittany asked if I had a poem in this form, and I didn't exactly.  Our game was inspired by a poem I wrote for POETRY TAG TIME, coming to Kindles next month, but that poem does not have this simple repeating line, "I used to be."  Hence, a new poem!  Students - writing is like that sometimes.  Sometimes you realize that you just need a new poem, and the only way to get it is to make it.

So....here is an "I used to be" poem for Brittany's students.  Perhaps they will share some of their own "I used to be" poems with us one day!  

You can read a tidbit about POETRY TAG TIME at Sylvia Vardell's Poetry for Children, and I will have more about it here very soon.

Today's photos are brought to you from yesterday's 4-H meeting here at our home where we began making birdhouses out of birdhouse gourds.  This is a very pleasing project, and while we're not all finished with the wood burning, these houses are very inviting.  

In the second photo, you can see Hope standing beneath a test-gourd which we turned into a feeder.  If you could see it closely, you would notice that it has been decorated by many different people and with two different test colors of stain.

Hope is very patient.  She had seven chickadees feed from the seed she'd placed on her hat, and one right from her hand.  Did you know that chickadees will eat from your hand?

This spring, we are going to plant these gourds!

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