Building A Community

This past Monday I was excited to be back for another residency at the O School. I taught poetry during the summer session and I’m looking forward to having twenty weeks to share and write poems with a new group. I even saw a few familiar faces from the summer session. For my intro lesson with the Group C (7th & 8th) students, we discussed ways in which nature can teach us about building strong communities. Most students defined communities as people, animals, or plant life that live in the same area, that support each other by providing food, shelter, or even emotional comfort.

Together we read the poem “Instructions on Listening to the Trees,” by Mahogany L. Browne. In her poem, Browne describes how humankind can connect and build relationships with nature but also contribute positively to each other for the growth of our community. Think about the ecosystem/ and how the leaves dress the tree trunks/ surviving the kindness of the sun/ Like any true community/ We must nourish and care for one another.

Inspired by Browne’s poem, students wrote poems describing interesting ways they embrace nature and all her teachings. To protect their privacy, students’ names are excluded from their poems. Please read the beautiful work below.

Group C (7th & 8th) Students

Ride Home

As I drive home, I see the lake slowly freezing over.
The shards of ice rafting over the waves as they flow and crash onto the shore.
The solid thick ice with a white cast over it. I imagine myself as a figure skater,
gliding across the layer of frost, the sound of my blades scratching
the ice as I jump and turn.
Feeling weightless as I dance across the lake. Suddenly, I feel a crack.
I go to feeling weightless to my weight shifting to the car floor,
in my imagination I dart away from the collapsing ice,
running towards the sun that begins setting every so earlier
every morning. I pick up the speed and suddenly fall in the cold water.
It rushes over me, the cold water fully submerging me and my emotions.
For a spilt second, I feel nothing.

Fall Walk

The drip, drip, drip, of the raindrops, falling off the red brown leaves.
I watch a drop of water fall into a small ocean on the sidewalk,
making ripples in the puddle, leaves strewn across the street like
a blanket of oranges, reds, yellows, and browns.
Looking down my street, like a tunnel made of trees, watching
the drops of rain, still drip, drip, dripping off the trees.
Suddenly a coyote steps on the sidewalk, paws lightly
hitting the pavement. She looks both ways and directly at me.
We both pause a moment, locking eyes for only a millisecond.

Orchard

On a tree in an orchard there are oranges, apples,
grapes and blueberries.
Reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues,
and purple.
Sour, sweet, bitter,
Trees,
Leaves,
Wind.