Where I Find Poems

Arts education aids students in skills needed in the workplace: flexibility, the ability to solve problems and communicate, the ability to learn new skills, to be creative and innovative, and to strive for excellence.
~Joseph M. Calahan, Xerox

Reflections star, Wolfsville Elementary School

The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.
~George Washington

I've talked about the PTA Reflections program a number of times before (here, here, here). The poem I'm sharing today was written by my daughter, then 17, for the Reflections competition literature category. The theme was "The Magic of a Moment."

Where I find poems
by Ariana Yeatts-Lonske

At day break,
The blushing sun paints haiku
On my front yard
With shades of morning dew

On the way to work,
The man on the corner of 47th and 5th
Holds up a sign that reads
STARVING VETERAN. GOD BLESS.
But if I squint a little,
The words rearrange themselves into
A quatrain about loss and solitude

As I call a cab,
I am pelted with afternoon sonnets
That glisten on the slick street
And soak through my dress shirt,
Clamoring for a paper home

At my niece’s 5th birthday party,
I pluck a sestina about dreams
From behind her ear
As she explains to me that
She is going to be a butterfly
When she grows up

At night,
The stars knock on my window,
Showing me how they’ve abandoned
Their constellations
To spell out
this

****************

I decided to help with Reflections again this year, despite what I said at Christmastime. My husband talked me into it, actually! I will only have one school to work on this time, so that will help. (Someone might ask whether Ariana won anything with her poem...she did! She was thrilled!)

You can find the Poetry Friday round-up at Reading to the Core.