Poetry to Warm Up With
Here are a few poems featuring plants and nature as subjects
to help your students ease into the open, expansive mind-set that
poetry
invites.
Unless otherwise
noted, these poems are in the public
domain.
Perfume-Laden
Air
by Sugawara Takesue no Musume (Japan, 1009 - 1070)
When from the
neighboring garden the perfume-laden air
Saturates my soul with
memories,
Rises the thought of the beloved plum tree
Blooming under the eaves of the house which is gone.
Ode to
the Dandelion
(or Why I Shouldn't Cut the Grass)
by Nancy Ness, M.Ed.
(Used by permission)
The sun shines high: the rain's gone by
.....It's Dandelion Day.
From fertile spawn my plush green lawn
.....Is mottled yellow spray.
The neighbors' round, all cutting down
.....Their blades and flowers gay ~
Now green they've got, a common lot,
.....While mine's in vast array.
Why should I mow these lovelies low,
.....Defying Sunshine's ray?
To bring them down the sun might frown,
.....And turn blue sky to gray.
I'll let their seeds fallow new weeds
.....And mow another day.
Resplay they should, the neighborhood.
.....The Dandelions stay!
Wind
and Window Flower
by Robert Frost
LOVERS, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.
When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the cagèd yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,
He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.
He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.
But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.
Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.
But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.
Scent
by Alberto
La Femina -- Capri, Italy
(Used by permission)
I live on a island
a silent island
the winds comes
and it never stops
sometimes it brings
the scent of the Mediterranean sea
sometimes it brings
the scent of the Saharan sand
but I know
it will bring somewhere
the scent of my island too
