Susan's Thursday morning note December 10, 2009 Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies
Stu’s first words in the dark this morning, “It’s going to be a brutal morning.” How was I to know he was then going to move his head a little to the left just as I shot off a carefully aimed strong squirt of water across the room at our annoying, meowing cat?…we mumbled and stumbled downstairs…no coffee. Brutal beginning to entering this -15 degree day after the blizzard! (Let’s not forget to add – this stunningly beautiful white scene!)
This week we received a new poetry book, Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs,and Lullabies. Julie Andrews (from the Sound of Music) and her daughter put together poems that kept me reading them all in one setting this week. There is a CD with the book where Julie reads some of the poems, but I know I’m going to order the CD where all of the poems are read to play when Camden tries to fall asleep or in the car while we drive. Here are her categories and some of the poems she chose. I’m having a hard time deciding which ones to leave out!!!!!! I hope you can burrow out – and if you do find you’re out of your hole…come to our store! We’ll have the coffee, hot cider, and fun!!
1. All Things Bright and Beautiful (36 poems on nature)
2. Accentuate the Positive (Optimistic poems on dreaming, My Favorite Things (how could she leave out that one?, and faith.
The Optimist
The optimist fell ten stories,
And at each window bar
He shouted to the folks inside:
“Doing all right so far!” Anonymous
3. Growing Up
Our Lady of Perpetual Demand
I want, I want, I want! You say, When can I have it? When?
Another day it’s No! I won’t! And no, no, NO! again.
I sigh. I ask for manners. Counter “I don’t want to hear it!”
But in my heart I celebrate Your dazzling strength of spirit.
Emma Walton Hamilton (Julie’s daughter)
4. Bedtime Blessings
5. Talk to the Animals
6. Sea-Fever
What are Heavy?
What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow;
What are brief? Today and tomorrow;
What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth;
What are deep? The ocean and truth.
Cristina Georgina Rossetti
7. Laughing Song (all fun poems)
Daddy Fell Into the Pond
Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey. We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day, And there seemed to be nothing beyond,
THEN Daddy fell into the pond!
And everyone’s face grew merry and bright, And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
“Give me the camera, quick, oh quick! He’s crawling out of the duckweed.” Click!
Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee, And doubled up, shaking silently,
and the ducks all quacked as if they were daft, And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.
Oh, there wasn’t a thing that didn’t respond WHEN Daddy fell into the pond! Alfred Noyes
8. Leisure (poems on poems, books, quiet)
At the Library
I flip the pages of a book and slip inside, where crystal seas await and pirates hide.
I find the paradise where birds an talk, where children fly and trees prefer to walk.
Sometimes I end up on a city street. I recognize the brownskin girl I meet.
She’s skinny, but she’s strong, and brave, and wise.
I smile, because I see me in her eyes. Nikki Grimes
What’s a Poem?
A whisper, a shout, thoughts turned inside out
A laugh, a sign, and echo passing by.
A rhythm, a rhyme, a moment caught in time.
A moon, a star, a glimpse of who you are. Charles Ghigna
The Reading Mother
You may have tangible wealth untold:
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be —
I had a mother who reads to me. Strickland Gillilan (abridged)
When Mother Reads Aloud
When mother reads aloud, the past seems real as every day;
I hear the tramp of armies vast, I see the spears and lances cast,
I join the thrilling fray; Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
I meet when mother reads aloud.
When mother reads aloud, far lands seem very near and true;
I cross the deserts’ gleaming sands, or hunt the jungle’s prowling bands,
Or sail the ocean blue; far heights, whose peaks the cold mists shroud,
I scale, when mother reads aloud.
When mother reads aloud, I long for noble deeds to do – to help the right, redress the wrong,
It seems so easy to be strong, so simple to be true. Oh, thick and fast the visions crowd
My eyes, when mother reads aloud. Anonymous
9. The Wonderful World
People
Some people talk and talk and never say a thing.
Some people look at you and birds begin to sing.
Some people laugh and laugh and yet you want to cry.
Some people touch your hand and music fills the sky. Charlotte Zolotow
My Symphony
To live content with small means,
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion,
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich,
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly,
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart,
to bear all cheerfully,
do all bravely,
await occasions,
hurry never –
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through my common.
This is to be my symphony. William Ellery Channing
Latin for this week: niva - snow, snowy, snowiness nival - living in a snowy environment niveous - resembling snow in color; snow-white nivicole, nivicolous - living in snow or snow-covered habitats Nivose - the fourth month of the French revolutionary calendar (1793) from Dec 21 to Jan 19; literally, "month of snow" Works Cited: Andrews, Julie, Hamilton, Emma Walton. Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies. New York. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Hachette Book Group. 2009.