A Poem From One Word

A most creative Robyn Hood Black is our host today for Poetry Friday. Check all the posts here for this first Friday of Poetry Month!

black rat snake

     I like writing from the Word of the Month at  David Harrison's blog.  I thought I'd share today what I wrote for March's word, snake. This particular word brought numerous poems and much conversation.  
             
                I've started a writer's support group with colleagues at school and they gave me feedback for the poem, too, but the word snake again brought up all kinds of responses from the group.  Interesting how one word can be so charged emotionally.  If you're interested, search the site to find the Word of the Month and you'll find the link.  The word for April is fragrance.  

                 Here is my poem for snake:

Learning

My mother shuddered when hearing “snake”. 

But I learned that it didn’t have to be bad,

in fact, the first one I met

face to face

(really,

face to face)

was a large black snake.

I visited Aunt Barb’s farm every summer.

She taught me how to make apple butter,

soap, and tiny quilt stitches.

I learned that slop buckets were for the pigs,

and some certain scraps saved for the cats,

with warm milk ladled into pans outside

after the cows were milked.

My cousin Nancy and I spent time visiting in the outhouse,

(Yes, the outhouse).

I can’t think why we thought it was a good place. 

We could have talked anywhere,

under a tree, on the porch,

in the barn!

But we chose the outhouse.

One day we were whispering and giggling

about some cute boy in town.

We were twelve.

A shadow dipped down between our heads.

It was a monster,

a dragon,

a huge head of a

snake!

We screamed and ran.

(My aunt ran after us.)

“Girls, girls, that’s just Oscar.  He lives there,

keeps watch for mice so they don’t bring disease

into the outhouse.

There are good snakes you know.

He won’t hurt you at all.

He was just curious.”

That day I learned not to listen always

to my mother,

that others held different opinions.

My aunt then took us out into the field

to look for copperheads and rattlesnakes,

and to the pond,

to look for water moccasins. 

(Don’t worry, we didn’t find any.)

We didn’t see any,

but she told us they were the ones to fear. 

We learned

how they looked and how they lived so we could be aware,

but not scared.

More poetry found below:

 To the right of this page lists the writers for Irene Latham's progressive poem during the month at Live Your Poem.You can read the lively and interesting poem that was created last year here.   

        Finally, you’d like to see more of the spectacular happenings occurring in April, check out Jama Rattigan’s blog, Jama’s Alphabet Soup.  I think she’ll be adding to the list as she finds out more, so keep checking in.

       And here are a few more wonderful poetry links at Tabatha Yeatts' blog,  The Opposite of Indifference.  

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Photo By Ltshears (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons