NPM19 - Day 14 - Learning

            Continuing with ideas from the book. This time, "Learning"

             Remember to share:

Tabatha Yeatts has created a link to poems teachers and librarians can print for poetry month, titled "Poetry in The Halls". I'm grateful to be one of the poets!

Jama Rattigan has a post HERE with many poets' goals for April.

The Progressive Poem schedule can be found on the right!

        I spent at least a week or more with my dear Aunt Barbara and Uncle Raymond every summer, from childhood to my teens. Those times hold a special place in my heart, from playing down at their creek, to swimming in the pond, many picnics, and for one spectacular week, this learning! The "we" is me and a niece of my uncle's, who became my college roommate, too.

something big’s coming

Together we bump the jeep

over the fields and dirt roads

of my uncle’s farm –

gleeful, filled with

fifteen going on sixteen.

We’re learning to drive.

We’re learning to drive his old army jeep;

groaning go the gears,

but smoother and smoother goes

the glide with the clutch.

We drive up to the house, 

wave at the younger cousins.

Our aunt won’t let them ride with us, yet.

Looking back, I understand

but we didn’t roll the jeep,

we just drove so much that week

we ran out of gas,

out by the cows.

They mooed at us as we walked by,

and we mooed back, and yelled

“We’re driving, we’re driving”

at the top of our lungs. 

You can do that in the country.

Back at the barn

we asked for the can,

to fill up again.

My uncle grinned and pointed.

The sun shone that last evening as 

we picnicked by the pond.

My aunt fed us dinner,

and her tasty chocolate cake,

just as my uncle had fed us  

the taste of freedom.

Linda Baie ©