A Poem for National Poetry Month

As many of you may know, April is National Poetry Month.

There was a time, before full time teaching, blogging, #edchat-ing, edcamping, food co-oping and other endeavors that I wrote poetry on a fairly consistent basis. It was my grounding force, my way of grappling with the world, questions, uncertainty, joy, sorrow, conundrums, beauty, ugliness and all forms of life that living could throw in my direction.

I miss poetry.

The wonderful thing about poetry is that it has no rules. Some of my favorite poems are only a few lines long. Poems can also make wonderful stories. They can have punctuation or they can completely bypass all grammatical rules. Poetry is what you make it.

Whatever you make of it, thought, poetry is best read out loud.

I was exhilarated this evening to feel a poem seeping out of me as I sat in my tiny, concrete backyard in South Philadelphia. So, in honor of National Poetry Month–a poem.

 

South Philadelphia Evening

The city is breathing.

It inhales with the hum of an airplane

and exhales with a child’s laughter.

I close my eyes and breathe in unison with the distant sound of sirens, a barking dog, and a slamming door.

Rhythms in the cool Spring air at dusk.