Hi everyone,
Yesterday I had a fine time talking with kids and teachers in Leeton, Missouri for my first live outing since the pandemic began, thanks to my friend Deanna Schuler whom I met when she was in first grade and is now a wonderful librarian. Her library makes you feel like you want to be there from the moment you walk in. I loved it! My books were on display. Thank you for that, too, dear Deanna!
I introduced and signed copies of THE DIRT BOOK for the first time and provided some book marks, thanks to the book’s artist, Kate Cosgrove. Thank you, Kate. It was great fun to explain to the kids that they were the first in the world to see the new book and hear me read from it. The first book I signed was the first I’d signed anywhere. They thought that was cool and so did I.
After talking about THE DIRT BOOK, we took a group of students outside to look at the ground for signs of things that live there. The kids found more than I did.
davidlharrison | June 11, 2021 at 7:44 am | Tags: c, Deanna Schuler, Grace Maccarone, Holiday House, Leeton School, The Dirt Book | Categories: David L Harrison, Deanna Schuler, Leeton School, The Dirt Book | URL: https://wp.me/pBt27-8BA
Mud Season
by Jane Kenyon
Here in purgatory bare ground
is visible, except in shady places
where snow prevails.
Still, each day sees
the restoration of another animal:
a sparrow, just now a sleepy wasp;
and, at twilight, the skunk
pokes out of the den,
anxious for mates and meals. . . .
On the floor of the woodshed
the coldest imaginable ooze,
and soon the first shoots
of asparagus will rise,
the fingers of Lazarus. . . .
Earth’s open wounds — where the plow
gouged the ground last November —
must be smoothed; some sown
with seed, and all forgotten.
Now the nuthatch spurns the suet,
resuming its diet of flies, and the mesh
bag limp and greasy, might be taken
down.
Beside the porch step
the crocus prepares an exaltation
of purple, but for the moment
holds its tongue. . . .
Jane Kenyon, “Mud Season” from Collected Poems.
Copyright © 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon.
Used by permission of The Permissions Company,
LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, June 11, 2021
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 