Poetry Friday - Strange Weather

What a week here in south Mississippi - a very warm week - reaching 80° on Tuesday. It is 58° today, and the predicted high for next week, seven days from that 80° day is also 58°. How about that? Thursday afternoon the students of my elementary school spent two hours in their safe places because of tornado warnings. Heat, torrential rain, scary wind, and now extreme cold - all in one week of this new year.

Ironically, first grade students at my school started their Ezra Jack Keats study with A Snowy Day this strange week. So in honor of snow:

"Winter Morning"
by Ogden Nash

Winter is the king of showmen,
Turning tree stumps into snow men
And houses into birthday cakes
And spreading sugar over the lakes.
Smooth and clean and frost white
The world looks good enough to bite.
That's the season to be young,
Catching snowflakes on your tongue.

Snow is snowy when it's snowing
I'm sorry it's slushy when it's going.

And

"Snowy Morning"
by Lilian Moore

Wake
gently this morning,
to a different day.
Listen.

There is no bray
of buses,
no brake growls,
no siren howls and
no horns
blow.

There is only
the silence
of a city
hushed by snow.

both poems from
Snowy Day: Stories and Poems edited by Caroline Feller Bauer

I have been lucky enough during my lifetime to experience a city hushed by snow - this very self same city which experienced 80° this week.

In my book . . . the silence is preferable to the howl of the wind.

Poetry Friday - Germs

After a weekend of introspection, I had a week of “no spection” - meaning muddled thinking. I was attacked by a germ.

I have mentioned my love of dictionaries. Well, I couldn’t help looking up the definition of the word introspection again which led me to musing which led to germ - I promise it does!

Ogden Nash’s
“The Germ”

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my popet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

Germ has many meanings, of course. It can mean a minute life form, especially a disease causing bacterium. It can mean a small electronic listening device - a bug. By the way, part of the etymology of introspection is specere - to look - which leads to spy. And we know that spies are very fond of bugs! But one of the meanings of germ is something that may serve as a basis of further growth or development: the germ of a project.

In my book . . . I can only hope that my "muddled thinking" causing germ will soon give way to that one which allows developing a real project!

Side note I: Definitions were taken from The Free Dictionary (Online) and Merriam-Webster Online.

Side note II: Last week some 6th grade boys actually asked me about dictionaries. I was thrilled! As I have said, and as you can see by my last two blog entries, I love dictionaries!