Time will bring solace

when every minute and second weighs a ton.

when it spans like shadows in the night

hugging my bones to the core.

Time becomes a blanket

burning like a hot summer day,

humid and dense

when I wish to run away.

Time sneaks in occasionally

frightening my existence

as monsters in disguise

ready to capture my soul.

Time, friend or foe?

Fanny Fernandez

From Poker Poetry

Our Time Will Come

OUR TIME WILL COME
Elizabeth Renaud

“Hace mucho frio siempre aqui en New Hampshire!”

“A glorious summer day in New Hampshire, they won’t last long, enjoy it while you can!”

Two groups of people in the exact same place, with the exact same weather, but with very different interpretations of the situation.

This got me thinking about the Writing Institute. While we are all teachers, we come to the Institute with very different interpretations of our situations. So many variables from different levels of classrooms, different subjects, different ages, even different segments of the population, are sitting right beside us in the Explorations, Inquiry, and Writing groups. As these differences challenge us, they also become the foundations for us to find common ground. As we discuss and get to know one another, some may not understand what goes on in a 1st grade class, but we learn the teaching practices are the same. We begin to connect on deeper levels. We begin to recognize and realize our goals are the same -- to become better teachers, better writers, better listeners for our students. The differences allow us to practice empathy, become more aware that not everyone is like us. We are learning to be open, to allow others their space, and to sit with it -- no judgement, no suggestions, no conditions -- it just is.

To our Dominican friends from your New Hampshire friends - we do understand cold, believe me, we do - just not at this time of year. While we bask in the relative warmth of 71 degrees, we will hand you a sweater knowing our time will come.

Poem-a-day

Poem a Day

By Meg Petersen

Many poets challenge themselves during National Poetry Month to write a poem every day.  The official National Poetry Month is in April, and since in April, I barely have time to brush my teeth, I have decided that for me, June is National Poetry Month.  I have written a poem every day so far this month (5 more days to go).  This has served to make me more attentive to the small things each day that catch my attention.  It’s sometimes challenging and a few times, I got pretty close to midnight without a poem, but it helps to jumpstart my writing as I enter the institute and provides a record of my life during the month of June.  It also gives me plenty of material for future revision.

I will share with you a poem I wrote, as the title implies, right before we began the institute, my poem for day 23 of this month.  

At the Cusp of the Institute

Right now, it’s all possibility.

The frame is there, the careful structure we have built

over months, over years, but it is only that, a border

to contain what we cannot yet know.  All we need

is inside us.  We are this thing;

it is ours, and we are it, and we will remake it

in an image we know will be unique, but recognizable. 

All this we know, but for now,

it is only potential, until we set it all in motion,

so we poise like coiled springs, ready,

We know this much:  that it will test us,

that we will need to trust in processes we don’t fully

understand, that we will build the plane while flying,

and that the after will be different.

But this is the before.

So we take a moment to breathe,

to reflect on what we might want to remember

of this pregnant space and wonder just what this is

in us, yearning

to be born.