Unexpected Intersections

  Spring is here! Officially, on the calendar, and unofficially (or is it more officially?), in nature. Every day we see more blooms. photo © 2022, Elisabeth Norton Snowdrops were followed by crocuses, and now the daffodils are stealing the show.  photo © 2022, Elisabeth Norton This expanse of daffodils, which we see on our lunchtime walks, has been reminding me of William Wordsworth's classic poem about daffodils every time we pass it, so this week I decided to reread it and look for other poems about daffodils.  Daffodils by William Wordsworth I wander'd lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.                             read the rest of the poem here .  Though we're not walking over hills and vales, Wordsworth's poem defini...

My very first Poetry Friday poem was inspired by the fact that my mother taught English as a Foreign Language when I was growing up. Our church ran a free program which allowed my mother, whose dream of being a teacher had to be deferred when she left high school, to finally realize that dream.  As a teen, I assisted the teacher of the children's class, and one of the highlights of every semester was the potluck dinner. From Poland to Thailand, Guatemala to Vietnam, at every potluck the table was full of the culinary specialities of the many countries our students had come from - side by side in one delicious feast. I looked forward to my favorites, loading up my plate with delicious flavors and foods that I would never have encountered, were it not for the fact that we had been brought together from many countries to learn and eat. In food, we can celebrate and appreciate our differences, while at the same time being drawn together by the sharing of it. Food has been on my mind a...

This week my students will be taking a test that includes the present continuous verb form. We use the present continuous to talk about actions that have started, and are not yet finished. As I prepare my test for my students, I realize that I've been in a present continuous frame of mind all week. On lunchtime walks, we see signs of spring; in the news, we read about fighting near Europe's largest nuclear plant and wonder if we should start carrying our iodine tablets* with us when we go out.  We are living in a present continuous state of cognitive dissonance. *All residents of Switzerland living within a certain proximity of a nuclear plant are issued iodine tablets in case of an emergency. We never thought the emergency might come from fighting around a nuclear plant across the continent. In my poem I'm grappling with the cognitive dissonance of such tragedy unfolding, and yet my own daily life and those of my family have (to this point) not been impacted by it. We work...