This week we moved down the street to a new spot. Probably a couple of minutes closer to Boulder than the last. The best part? We are able to have a fire, finally! Due to the weather forecast predicting rain, rain, rain, we get a fire, fire, fire! The way I wrote this, reminds of a lovely fire poem I came across:
Pyro, Fuego, Fire,
It’s a power, a strength,
A source of light,
Luminescent as solar energy,
Incandescent as moonbeams,
Luminosity of stars
Effulgence of blue heavens
It kindles, ignites vivid minds,
Imaginations, carnival brilliance,
Illuminates the world, the universe,
In the beginning a friend,
It leads, guides your way,
Makes you warm, live, survive, yet
In the end, if abuse, left alone,
Becomes a monster, a destroyer,
Murderer, a spoiler it is,
Instill fear in you, the phobia overrule us,
Soon the cosmos, the macrocosm,
Solar, lunar, mankind to ashes,
Lustrous existence gone,
All in darkness, inky black
Empty space, serenity, tranquility but then,
The essence is nothing without –
Fire! Fire! Fire!
How many of us love poetry? I would argue not many. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe you haven’t fallen in love with the way the words can flow without correct grammar and punctuation. Its beautiful. Works of art. My goal this year is to teach poetry so my students can fall in love with it again. In order to do this, I have been reading a lot of different poetry. I am going to “steal like an artist” from my friend in grad school class, Laura. She told us how she does a poetry slam every Winter before break. Her middle school students get to read a poem they wrote, while sharing in a small potluck of goodies that they bring in. What a wonderful idea!
My students are fourth graders, but they can absolutely do this, if I give them tools they need for success. We learn the best by standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. Perhaps some people believe that we must be completely unique in our own writing, when in fact, other believe we need to “steal” or model our own writing after people who have done it before. Not stealing their words of course, but stealing the way they wrote it.
I love Noel’s poem above. The way she writes three words with a comma in between in each one. “Pyro, Fuego, Fire” I love this line! How amazing it could be to teach my students small craft moves like this one to spice up their writing! Or the double similes in a row in the third and fourth line of the poem. I know what she is writing about within those comparisons.
I sit in front of a powerful fire. Watching the flames crackle and sway with each new breath of air. Thinking about Noel’s words, the tension between a beautiful light source, and a murderous destroyer: “In the beginning a friend/ It leads, guides your way/ Makes you warm, live, survive, yet/ In the end, if abuse, left alone/ Becomes a monster, a destroyer/ Murderer, a spoiler it is.”
As our toes get warmer sitting by the fire, words fill my mind of how to describe this wondrous creation. A loss of words, until I remember I can read other’s writing to inspire my own.
Wild-Free 