Seeing Clearly: school's out

Friday, June 6, 2008

school's out

School is out as of noon today and me without a camera! I wish I could have shared some images with you of my fifth graders at their Aloha breakfast-they were just beaming with joy and promise and although I will miss them all I am happy to send them forward from their Waukazoo nest to the bigger world of middle school. We teachers waved good bye from the hill and I brought home another rose bush from the Marsman family--this one is coral pink, a fitting color to represent their youngest and most colorful child, Kristin. Three other Marsman bushes grace my garden and the blooms are almost as beautiful as the girls (Kaitlin, Kelly and Kara).

One of my favorite things is finding a piece of artwork like the one above on my desk. Perhaps this helps to explain my relentless optimism-kids having a way of making your world much brighter. I have a friend who is retiring next year, and when I asked her why, she said, "you know, Claude, being an accountant for such-and-such company isn't quite as rewarding as teaching art to children." thanks for the slap upside the head, Jean...:)

My heart has been so full today that I am now sitting here listening to the wind blow and feeling the peace that has alluded me all week. The transition was aided by a call from my darling Vanessa, who had her last day yesterday. Only teachers know how it feels.

I have a poem for you from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda that speaks to this idea of stillness after such busyness:

Now we will count to twelve

and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the

earth,

let's not speak in any language

let's stop for a sceond,

and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment

without rush, without engines;

we would all be together in a sudden strangeness...

sending peace vibes out and feeling them coming back...

love,

claudie

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: If im in the situation of the owner of this blog. I dont know how to post this kind of topic. he has a nice idea.; June 6, 2008 at 10:32 PM

Post a Comment

The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.

a poem from TRAVELING MERCIES by Annie Lamott

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feeling we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--w.s. merwin

from Kabir, Indian mystic poet

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!...

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten--

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with

an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Night Letter to theReader by Billy Collins

Night Letter to the Reader

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,

a bird leaving the nest,

a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,

an ordinary insomniac

amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking

about something I heard at a party,

about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,

but as it is, I am simply conscious,

an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity

of the night and the slight zephyrs

that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out

and stands a little ahead,

her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you were even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

but this is what I want to do--

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

This poem does what all good art does-it makes my heart fill as I recognize myself in it, and I say, "yes! that is exactly it!" and I realize once again that I need to tell you so many things. I feel inspired. Alive.

There are not enough hours.

a note from Kevin Griffin, author and spritual leader from Shambhala