Poetry Friday - On Choosing

      Elizabeth Steinglass hosts our Poetry Friday this week with a lovely poem reflecting upon her life, "Why I'm Here". Be sure to visit to read it and then follow the links to others sharing poetry.

    

         The week stretches on, the news fills with more and more, strange responses that I find hard to understand. How can he think that? Why would she say such hurtful words? What makes them so fearful? Who taught them those beliefs? And in my own life's connections, I wonder if each one I question ever, ever was given the chance to think for him or herself? Sometimes the answers I hear are "That's just the way it is." I taught many years in a school that valued choice above any other academic requirement. Each chose what to study, how to approach it, how would each show what was learned. 

          These students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida are making choices right now, how they want to fight to make change, how they want to ensure that #neveragain is a hashtag that will be remembered. They "choose" to act, they know there will be consequences and it seems that there already have been, both good and bad. They are discovering the kinds of adults they want to be. That's what kids learn when they're given choice, they consider options, and choose. Growing up, the choices become more complicated, become more connected to living beings, yes, more complex. They figure out personal priorities, who the choices will affect, not only themselves but others--family, friends, strangers. I am sad that I learned of these fine young women and men in these horrific circumstances, but I am glad to know of them and their actions. I hope many, many of us will give them support.

           Robert Frost helps me collect my rambling words. I hope it will add to your own reflections, too, about 'choice'.

THE ARMFUL

Robert Frost

For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns—
Extremes too hard to comprehend at once,
Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with, I will do my best
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road.
And try to stack them in a better load.