The first grade students who visit my library love pirates - at least the pirates who are in the marvelous books written by Melinda Long and illustrated by David Shannon.
In honor of pirates:
We had buried some treasure (and bodies as well)
And was just sailin' back from the cave,
When he calls fer boiled water
And stomps down below
An' gor' but he comes up shaved.
There's a chickenish stubble and fishbelly skin
On that face once so blazin' and brave
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And things ain't the same
In the piratin' game
Since ol' Captain Blackbbeard shaved.
A selection from “Captain Blackbeard Did What?”
By Shel Silverstein In
A Light in the Attic
Harper Collins, 2001 
In my book . . . Life would be good if we could retain our love of the impossible of our imagination.
Another Poetry Friday on Monday.
A germ completely wiped out my weekend. But President’s Day offers a chance to also post a love poem for Valentine’s Day.
John and Abigail Adams are remembered not only as the 2nd President of the United States and the 2nd First Lady but also as loving correspondents over their many forced separations.
A selection from a letter from John to Abigail on May 14, 1789:
I pray you come, as soon as possible. As to money you must if you can borrow enough to bring you here. If you cannot borrow enough, you must sell horses, oxen, sheep, cows, anything. If no one will take the place, leave it to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.
Source: PBSIn honor of great love:
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alterations finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
In my book . . . True love stands the test of time.
This is getting to be a habit, but the truth is that Saturday morning is the best time for me to think about what to write. So, maybe I will break the tradition of Poetry Friday and have Poetry Friday on Saturday.
Thursday, February 7th, was Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday. In August 1923 she wrote: Out in the meadow, I picked a wild sunflower, and as I looked into its golden heart, such a wave of homesickness came over me that I almost wept. I wanted Mother, with her gentle voice and quiet firmness, I longed to hear Father’s jolly songs and to see his twinkling blue eyes; I was lonesome for the sister with whom I used to play in the meadow picking daisies and wild sunflowers. . . .
The real things of life that are the common possession of us all are of the greatest value - worth far more than motor cars or radios, more than lands or money - and our whole store of these wonderful riches may be revealed to us by such a common, beautiful thing as a wild sunflower.
from Writing to Young Women From Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Life As A Pioneer Woman
edited by Stephen W. Hines
“Two Sunflowers
Move into the Yellow Room”
from A Visit to William Blake’s Inn
by Nancy Willard "Ah, William, we’re weary of weather,”
said the sunflowers, shining with dew.
“Our traveling habits have tired us.
Can you give us a room with a view?”
They arranged themselves at the window
and counted the steps of the sun,
and they both took root in the carpet
where the topaz tortoises run.
“Keep your face to the sunshine
and you cannot see the shadow.
It’s what sunflowers do.”
by Helen Keller
In My Book . . . The shadows have been chasing my family this week. We need to face the sunshine!
Poetry Friday on Saturday I purposefully postponed Poetry Friday until today in order to celebrate Groundhog’s Day! The earliest reference to Groundhog’s Day in American was made by a storekeeper in his diary on February 4, 1841 referring to February 2nd as Candlemas Day which to the Germans’ is Groundhog’s Day. Candlemas Day was celebrated by early Christians as the day Jesus was presented in the Temple, traditionally 40 days after Christmas. It is also a cross quarter day, the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and may be considered the beginning of Spring. In western Europe is was a time for preparing earth for first plantings. Since many hibernating animals such as bears and in Europe hedgehogs were thought to peek out of their dens to see if it was time to wake up, it is perhaps natural that this day became known as Groundhog’s Day by early settlers of North America. There were no hedgehogs there; but there were the chubby, furry rodents called groundhogs.
Margaret Hillert’s“Is It True?”
The groundhog plays a little game
(Woodchuck is his other name.)
If he finds no shadow here,
Spring is very, very near.
But if he sees his shadow small,
Winter isn't done at all,
And back into his hole he'll creep
For six more weeks of winter sleep.
Robert Herrick’s
“The Ceremonies for Candlemas Day”
Kindle the Christmas brand, and then
Till sunset let it burn;
Which quench'd, them lay it up again,
Till Christmas next return.
Part must be kept, wherewith to teend
the Christmas log next year;
And when 'tis safely kept, the fiend
can do no mischief there.
Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning. But Georgia’s General Beauregard Lee did not. General Lee’s predictions over the years have proven to be 93% to 37% more accurate that Phil’s.
In my book . . . Though I enjoyed the surprise snow day here in south Mississippi, I think that I will choose to believe the General’s point of view.
