Poetry Friday: Firefly by Jacqueline Woodson

Thanks to Heidi at Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe. for hosting Poetry Friday.

My niece moved to NYC last August.  She introduced her son to fireflies last week.  They are such magical creatures.  Hereś a Jacqueline Woodson poem.

Firefly

BY  JACQUELINE WOODSON

It’s almost May

and yesterday

I saw a firefly.

You don’t see

them a lot

in the city.

Sometimes

in the park

in the near dark

The rest of the poem is HERE.

Check It Out is going on a summer break until August.

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Poetry Friday: Happy Birthday to Billy Collins

Thanks to Heidi for hosting Poetry Friday today.  What I love about our Poetry Friday community is that someone will have an idea and we will run with it.  Not only is Heidi hosting, she encouraged us to find a Billy Collins poem in honor of his birthday later this month.

I love this quote by him:

The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A lot of it has to do with tone because tone is the key signature for the poem. The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme. Billy Collins

And there is a poem at The Poetry Foundation which I love.

The First Line of a Poem

Before it flutters into my mouth
I might spend days squinting
into the wind
Like an old man
trying to thread a needle
by a window
in the dying light of  late afternoon.

The rest of the poem is HERE.

At Deowriter, I took 10 words and wrote a first draft of a poem, At the First Light of Day

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Happy Friday.

Happy Poetry.

Poetry Friday:

Poetry Friday all red, whie, and blue is at My Little Juicy Universe.

Happy Fourth of July. I discovered this poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, born the same year as when Lewis and Clark left to search for the Northwest Passage. It seems a fitting poem for today.

A Nation’s Strength

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 – 1882

What makes a nation’s pillars high
And its foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor’s sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly…
They build a nation’s pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.

I’m at friends in Idaho, my place to be on this holiday. Small town parade, a picnic in the park, and fireworks tonight. Have a wonderful weekend.
Happy Friday.
Happy poetry.