Daylight

When I began this blog, my thought was that blue spaces and green spaces were mostly about nature.  But slowly I am learning that these spaces are found everywhere.  Recently, I wrote about songs that contain blue spaces and green spaces.  Yesterday, I learned about blue space in the classroom.

It began with a simple question: what are your earliest memories about reading and writing?  By earliest, I meant before Kindergarten, before formal schooling.  I shared my memories, and then I asked them to brainstorm and write down some of their own.  Of course I had the naysayers, "I don't have any memories like that."  But once we got going, they realized they did.

This activity was to only take about 10-15 minutes because it isn't part of the "curriculum."  Yet, it became part of the curriculum when I saw the light dawning on their faces, and their excitement on sharing memories of learning to write their names, or books read to them by grandmothers, or television shows that taught them the power of words. It felt like the most natural conversation in the world.  It was pure blue space.

Today I read a poem by James Wright called "Come, Look Quietly," and I used the title to start my own poem.  I had no idea where it was going until it started to cascade out of me. Here is my first of what I hope are many poems about blue and green spaces in the classroom.

Come, look quietly

as daylight

spreads across

the faces of

your students

who are 

thinking of

words and

stories important

to them, as 

a memory from

long ago surfaces

and delights, 

and they feel

3-years-old

again, when

life wasn't 

as hectic as

now, and no

one demanded

they be anything

but themselves.