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How lucky we are that hobbit53 shares her wise and full-colored poetry with us. This latest from her reveals the labor, compassion and poignancy of elementary school education. There is a priceless life lesson here.

Still Life with Torn Handkerchief and Muffins

Breakfast ,my classroom, anyday
Muffins,juice...sit on the table...
I tear the towels for the kids to use...
They come in from the busride
Hungry ,hungry
For food, for friends ,for acceptance
Mostly for acceptance.
I look at them
Seeing them
As not just the needy children they are
Not just someone’s babies,
Not just my current class of sevenyearolds...
No more than that...
They are my proving ground,
My test, my quest, my mission…
And if I choose to take it
(And don’t get blown up in the process)
We will grow
We will move from the this easel of this still moment
This still life of me and them and school
Of living in 2012,
of going through the motions of being...
and we will have breath breathed in us
from the bellows of the day
And become the portraits of what life still is ….
Trying to be loved

Yes it's Monday all you lovely Poet! And that means a challenge to kick-start the week.

Your image prompt is in first reply. Look at it for a few seconds, close your eyes and let it speak to you, then let your fingers document your Muse's words. Have fun!

Even with scribbled words
distant and lacking
it is not easy

And an unforgiving sun
rises midst accumulations
of clouds and regrets

The poem dries in warmth
and the light spreads
Something scurries for cover

Seasons take their turn
But there is always light and darkness
Always words or silence

Beneath heavy wings of a crabapple
or a cave high in the hills
retreat is the giggle of the coward

In my late afternoons
I call unheard from the far desert
chasing the fading light

I love you
I love you I love you
I love you I love you I love you

And the clouds belly up
and push into the east
A brilliant sun sinks into peaks

Peaks that are too high
for the difficult reasons
For the simple reasons

And we turn our heads
as shadows grow longer
than a lifetime-

Friends, it's a week from Valentine's Day. A couple of the titles I offer today may give you an opportunity to wax romantic--or cynical--or philosophical. Hope they suit you!

Shilling for Cupid
Freedom of the Kiss
Their Eyes Locked (and Now Their Heads Are Stuck Together)
The Certificate of Attractive Annoyance Goes To...
Of a Breezy Park Near Sundown

If you want rules, they are: 1) Write poetry using one or more of these titles, but feel free to change the titles as you wish; 2) If titles occur to you, please share them with us; 3) We're here to be challenged and entertained, and to challenge and entertain each other, but not to compete nor criticize.

Thanks for your attention, and blessings for your participation!

I could have used a little charity
it was supposed to be a lottery
for a site on the beachfront
and I was in it
until someone said - let’s auction those off
for charity
disappointed, I’d dreamed of returning to
that beach front of forty years ago -
losing a lottery was okay, that’s fate
but for me, a single, to lose it to a couple
with double resources, well -
didn’t seem fair . . .
but I count not the cost
that big-ticket price counts also as
my contribution
to charity:
love
trumps
resentment

2012 Feb 9 8:08am pst windnsea

It’d be…Thursday…without poems…

But, being as we are POETS, we would never let that happen, right?

Of course, knowing that poets require inspiration, here follow two very inspiring prompts.

And since hordes of Special Ops Cupids lurk on the horizon ready to strike (you can just make them out if you look for the glow of their night vision goggles), before they do you’d best write something Valentinesy to assuage their wrath.

What, you think guys shooting arrows into peoples’ backsides are HAPPY?

So, please write:

A love poem from Oscar the Grouch to his grouch girlfriend.

or

A poem about being a Valentine’s Day card that didn’t get sold.

Friends, our beloved moderator windnsea is headed off to places South of the Border where she will have no internet access. So here I am trying to fill her shoes...and me without a Muse.

You can all breathe a sigh of relief that I will not be giving a Valentine's Day challenge this time. Instead I took a clue from Punxsutawney Phil who saw his shadow last week and retreated back into darkness for another month and a half.

Do you like YOUR shadow? Is it scary or absent or fun-loving or living on the dark side? Ask your shadow to write a poem. It can be from the shadow's point of view or from your own.

I did too!

So, in honor of its weekly visit, here’s the challenge:

Write a poem about something – anything – you consider sacred. And, write a poem about something you consider profane. Serious poems only this week. No comedy. And no limits on subject; it can be whatever falls into those categories for you. (sans profanity, please...)

They can be separate, two poems linked together, or in one poem, any way is fine.

That we all die is a known quantity

But our words

will they live on

Are words immortal, everlasting

like supposed souls

or do they fade, like those old songs

whose lyrics we once knew, now har...ly

rememb...

will our word... fade

fal... off paper

dimin... are they...

wil y...

do kno... much

fading

...
dying

...

gone

Every now and then,
You realize it's alright
And keep on smiling.

.