Conversations

Day 1, January’s Open Write for Educators with Susie Morice

Inspiration

Perhaps it is the isolation of Covid that has me decoding the power of conversation.  I miss being face-to-face with my loved ones so much, that I have turned to Nature and have found meaningful conversations there. So often we buzz past and through the huge slices of nature that are all around us as if they were just stage scenery for Beckett’s Godot, rather than our experiencing the intricate, enormous, endless, breathing, living environments that we take for granted.  The tree when we look closely bends to reach out and capture rays, muscling its way through the crowd to rise above the din of humanity at its feet.  I can’t help but think that nature is in conversation with its “brothers” and “sisters” and “ancestors,” and they have so much to say to each other. Just listening in can be transcending.

Process

Take yourself to nature…think back to a moment when you stood quiet in the grace of Nature. Or grab a coat/jacket/sweater and walk outside to stand in your own tiny piece of Nature, a tree by the sidewalk perhaps.  I know that our teacher poet friend Stacey walks mindfully there in LA and shares pictures of incredible flowers along her path. Were you to have a conversation, as you stand there, who is listening?  What questions might you ask? Conversations are ways we connect, ways we find common ground, ways we sort out our thinking, ways we thread ourselves together, ways we lean into each other. Perhaps make this poem a conversation with that entity in nature. 

And again, writing a poem is a gift to we who are reading them aloud in our January cocoons in these strange days of C-19… so write whatever moves you.

Ada Limón’s Poem, “Sparrow, What Did You Say?“

A whole day without speaking,
rain, then sun, then rain again,
a few plants in the ground, newbie
leaves tucked in black soil, and I think
I’m good at this, this being alone
in the world, the watching of things
growing, this older me, the she
in comfortable shoes and no time
for dishes, the she who spent
an hour trying to figure out that the bird
with a three-note descending call
is just a sparrow. What would I
do with a kid here? Teach her
to plant, watch her like I do
the lettuce leaves, tenderly, place
her palms in the earth, part her
black hair like planting a seed? Or
would I selfishly demand this day
back, a full untethered day trying
to figure out what bird was calling
to me and why.

Susie’s Poem, “Petrel Conversations at Sea“

I held a tiny petrel once in my hands,
her heart aflutter
as if she were speaking,
asking questions.

Off the coast of Maine,
on a rock really, not quite an island,
in the night
she’d come so far,
from Antarctica
gliding over the seas
thousands and thousands of miles,
along her invisible liquid pathway,
soaring and dipping
plankton creatures,
even smaller, off the misty water
while her fragile feet,
like rudders,
kept her airborne keel.

Her journey so long,
what did she say
to the Atlantic with its rolling waves,
vast grey, unmeasured might,
offering her no nest?

Did she ask,

Where do you lay your head
waters to rest;
you are so restless, roiling;
are your thoughts always churning?
Could you offer up an isle
or the back of a Blue or a Right or a Humpback
just a moment where I might
hitch a ride for a mile or two
so we might compare notes,
you,
so much bigger
than I?

Then, I opened my hands
and she carried on
o’er the swales
to chatter
with the whales.

by Susie Morice©

Your Turn to Write & Respond

If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, share this invitation form.