365 Days of Earrings

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Dragonflies of summer

Dragonflies. In summer, I greet them each day as I paddle upstream and down. My friend Ardyce often joins me in her yellow boat, a true joy of summer: time to float and chat. My daughter Kathe made this pair of earrings for me, in the blues I love.

My 3rd graders are researching animals, and preparing to write about them in a variety of genres. In addition to non-fiction, they will write poetry and personal narratives; they will imagine themselves as animals, and share what they imagine.

Here is my dragonfly poem, which hangs on the wall:
                           June 20
For me, summer began  at 2:11 PM today.
School closed two weeks ago.
Summer’s solstice has come and gone.
Days have begun to shorten.

So why today? Because of an annual sign:
As I paddled my kayak upstream,
I spied a flash of iridescent green
In flight.

Above the tip of my blue boat
She hovers,
Dips, and alights,
Wings spread.

Now I see all four:
Glittering narrow webs of black thread,
Opening from
A thin gray-green stem.

I gaze into her bulbous eyes,
Reflective like sunglasses,
And wonder how I must look
In her 10,000 lenses.

I blink and she is gone,
My harbinger of summer.
I paddle on, smiling.
Summer began today.

I left that world a month ago to return home for the school year. This writing project creates a bridge for me from summer to fall.  

1 comment:

jwkrumich said...

Wonderful poem. I like to think about the moment each year when summer really begins.
Ten thousand lenses? Wow.