Good Friday, Poetry Friday, Merton Friday

Fr. Louis (Thomas Merton) was such a prolific and moving poet that it's hard to decide which poem to share today. "Death" is a piercing one -- it jolts us (Take time to tremble lest you come without reflection / To feel the furious mercies of my friendship, / (Says death) because I come as quick as intuition)  but ends with the infinite hope of a tiny act of faith.

Read the whole poem here.

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Heidi Mordhorst has the round up this week at My Juicy Little Universe. She's also sharing details about her kick-off of Irene Latham's annual Progressive Poem

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April is National Poetry Month. For a jam-packed post full of every Kidlitosphere event you can imagine, visit Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup. 

Bits and Pieces of Our Days (The Picture Edition)

Ramona's been drawing again:

Howl and Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle

Wonder Woman! 

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Speaking of art, she and I have been using the lovely and whimsical art from this page-a-day calendar as inspiration for our own doodles, too.  The calendar was a gift from dear old pal Lissa, and we look forward every day to the next thing in A Year of Tiny Pleasures. 

This one happened to fall on the same day we had a blizzard. 

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Atticus has the best kids on his speech team. They gave him a Dundie!

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Doggo is looking forward to spring, and to shedding her winter coat: 

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Me, too. 

Poetry Friday: Billy Collins Again, Because I Need Him Today

In "Today," Billy Collins splendiferously evokes the unadulterated joy of that day -- that moment -- when the heart and mind and soul know and believe that Spring has truly landed.

In Nebraska?

Today is not that day.

But I know that day is on the way. So, for today, I give you "Today."


Today
by Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
....

(Read the poem, here, at The Poetry Foundation.)

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Linda Baie, at Teacher Dance, is hosting a springy Poetry Friday roundup today. Visit, savor, leave your link. 

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P.S. 

And just because I love Simon and Garfunkel, I'm also sending you directly to Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup, for a review (and giveaway!) of a perfectly delicious picture book bio of the duo. 

Long before Spotify and other diabolically convenient methods of indulging musical obsessions were a thing, I used to tell Atticus that balance in the universe could be achieved by a radio station that played All-Simon-and-Garfunkel-All-The-Time. 

So. That's that. 

Happy Poetry Friday. 

Happy Dreaming of Spring. 

Happy Sounds of Silence.