Haiku

Such a week.  Such a week.  Such a week.  I'm still dazed by the rapidity of it -- I hardly sat down.  I hardly slept.  Always running, running, running.  This is such a crazy pace -- such a crazy way to live.  School has been squarely center stage.  I eat my lunch on the run; always moving, moving moving.  I bring my work home with me every night and feel guilty for walking around the pond instead of grading spelling tests.  I also went to the dentist on Wednesday and had my permanent crown put in.  I've been on drugs for pain ever since.  It's been an intense, hectic week.  However...

...I taught my students how to write haiku poetry and introduced them to the great Japanese poet, Basho.  The assignment was to write haiku about impressions of Yosemite.  Today we wrote our final drafts in pen and then painted watercolor illustrations.  As a refresher; haiku are three-line poems of 5, 7 and 5 syllables.  They are usually about nature, invoke a season and an emotion.  Here are some of my 4th graders' poems:

Yosemite Falls
Sound of mom shushing baby
It makes me feel calm.

I hear the trees move
Some people can hear nature
I am one who can.

Trees whisper to me
Over in Yosemite
They speak so softly.

Yosemite cliffs
There are rocks that are huge
Their name is granite.

Black crow as dark as
Black bear on a summer day
But not dark inside.

Like a skyscraper
Watching Yosemite's Valley
These giants are boss!

Glistening in the sun
The fresh snow looks like sugar
Now deer's tracks I seek. 

Ancient silent grass
Quicksilver rabbit running
Whish! Silence again.

How happy I am
The trees are so colorful
a fall wonderland.

Waterfall crashing
On and on the waterfalls
Amazing to me!

I do love the trees
That grow near the river blue
So cold and clear too.

Mounds of leaves from trees
Brown, red, yellow  -- none the same
Winter air is near.


OK, sometimes I'm so incredibly pleased and proud to be a teacher that I could dance across the room with joy.  Some of these poems were written by children who would be pegged as the absolute least poetic candidates on the planet.  And I get to look them in the eye and say, "Oh my goodness, sweetheart, you have the soul of a poet!"  Then I have the supreme pleasure of seeing the look of mixed happiness and confusion on the faces of these young people who had no idea that they had the words and voice to move mountains.  That's pretty cool.