Vacuum - Edward Vielmetti in Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

Snow Day - Billy Collins

As always, we will be tuning in to see if the Ann Arbor schools are closed tomorrow; it's bitterly cold, there are wind chill warnings, and a few area schools have already cancelled. AAPS snow day phone 734-994-8684 - WWJ SE Michigan snow day page - WZZM Grand Rapids MI school closings - WSYM Lansing MI school closings - WLUC Marquette MI / Upper Peninsula school closings

SNOW DAY by Billy Collins

Originally from The Atlantic, February 2000

Hear Billy Collins read this poem (in RealAudio).

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed,
the All Aboard Children's School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with -- some will be delighted to hear --

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School,
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and -- clap your hands -- the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

Technorati Tags: michigan, cold, snow, weather, brrr

Winter - Walter De La Mare

Winter

 

CLOUDED with snow

The cold winds blow,

And shrill on leafless bough

The robin with its burning breast

Alone sings now.

 

The rayless sun,

Day's journey done,

Sheds its last ebbing light

On fields in leagues of beauty spread

Unearthly white.

 

Thick draws the dark,

And spark by spark,

The frost-fires kindle, and soon

Over that sea of frozen foam

Floats the white moon.

Walter De La Mare

snow poetry, school closing, paczki, Kindergarten, NAAPID

Since the storm is coming, I'd remind you of this page I'm collecting snow poetry on. ORD was showing 5 hour delays a few minutes ago and there are expectations of 6-10 inches.

UPDATE: Wednesday, March 5 2008. Ann Arbor Public Schools closed. Check the Arborwiki sledding page for your favorite place to slide.

UPDATE: Thursday, February 7 2008. WWJ Radio has a comprehensive schools closed list for SE Michigan. In the area already closed are several schools in Livingston Co (Brighton, Howell, Pinckney) but no news yet for Ann Arbor. Some snow day reading for kids to inspire you.

UPDATE: Friday, February 1, 2008 The Ann Arbor Public Schools are closed today.
UPDATE: Snow depth maps daily from Weather Underground

UPDATE: NOHRSC is "the ultimate source of snow information"

Ann Arbor snow day hotlines by telephone:

Ann Arbor City snow desk 734-994-2359
Ann Arbor Public Schools closing info 734-994-8684

For Ann Arbor school closings information, consult your second grader, who is planning a play date. If you don't know about that you can check the Ann Arbor school closing information page which says in part:

Inclement weather may require closing schools or changing school schedules and bus routes. The decision is made after an early inspection of road conditions and school facilities, as well as current or forecasted weather conditions. When schools are closed or schedules and/or bus routes are changed, information is sent immediately to the major radio and television stations-by 6:00 a.m. if at all possible.

February 5 is Paczki Day, and the authoritative source of information on this day is the Hamtramck Star's Keyword(s): paczki collection.

If you know of good Paczki in Ann Arbor, Arborwiki would like to know abou them. On my block downtown they are being sold at Amadeus.

If you have a kindergartener starting in the fall, it's time for the Ann Arbor Public Schools Kindergarten Roundup schedule. The Burns Park dates are 2/11/08 and 2/19/08, and if you have any questions as a new parent to the school I'd be happy to help find someone to answer. The 2/11 date is National African American Parent Involvement Day, which was founded by Joseph Dulin:

"Every parent wants their child to have a better quality of life than they themselves had. It is the American dream, and for many African Americans, this dream has not been realized as a result of their child's failure in school. Education is the key to success and parents are educators' greatest allies." Joseph Dulin

That's it for tonight.

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter / Robert Bly

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
Robert Bly

It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.
The only things moving are swirls of snow.
As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron.
There is a privacy I love in this snowy night.
Driving around, I will waste more time.

from Silence in the Snowy Fields, 1953
Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn.

from Poetry 180: a poem a day for american high schools, The Library of Congress

The More It Snows by A.A. Milne

The more it snows ~~
tiddely pom,
The more it goes ~~
tiddely pom,
The more it goes ~~
tiddely pom
On snowing ~~

And nobody knows~~
tiddely pom ,
How cold my toes ~~
tiddely pom,
Are growing.

more snow poetry: Snow Poetry from Inspiring Teachers Publishing; Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Snow-Storm from Poem of the Week; and of course there's lots more.

Machines of Loving Grace, Richard Brautigan

via Jessamyn comes this apt poem from Richard Brautigan.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

More at the Richard Brautigan Bibliography and Archive.

Technorati Tags: via:jessamyn, poetry, brautigan

Two Voices in a Meadow by Richard Wilbur

Two Voices in a Meadow by Richard Wilbur

1. A MILKWEED
Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.
What power had I
Before I learned to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall possess the field.

2. A STONE
As casual as cow-dung
Under the crib of God,
I lie where chance would have me,
Up to the ears in sod.
Why should I move? To move
Befits a light desire.
The sill of Heaven would founder,
Did such as I aspire.

Technorati Tags: richard-wilbur, poetry, milkweed, stone, cow-dung, why-should-I-move

Turn the Glasses Over (trad arr. Cindy Kallet)

I've been to London, I've been to Dover
I've traveled this wide world all over.
Over, over, three times over
Drink all you have to drink and turn the glasses over.
Sailing east, sailing west
Sailing over the ocean,
Better watch out when the boat begins to rock
Or you'll lose your girl in the ocean

as heard on her Leave The Cake In The Mailbox CD.

Technorati Tags: lyrics

Daffodils, William Wordsworth / 2007 Imagine/Align project

Every year the Imagine/Align project hails the coming of springtime in the University of Michigan's Nichols Arboretum. A measure of global change is the date of the opening event; last year's 2006 reception was on April 24. Today's report from the field, from April Pickrel:

The daffodils are just starting to come up. There are several places
along the line that are making good progress. No blooms for a little
bit at least. I can't really make a good guess for how long it will be,
but I'd say a week or two. I'll keep an eye on them and keep you
posted!

Daffodils, William Wordsworth. 1770–1850

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

--

Julia Casterton: Señor Lobelinos

Julia Casterton

Señor Lobelinos

We sit over his nets. He doesn’t fish now but
sometimes he sits with the nets
in the fishermen’s house on the lonxa.

Somehow we talk a little
me with my small gallego, he with his small English
among the nets.

The fishermen leave for the fish, he says.
They take the currents they’ve always taken
to the New World, for the cod,

for the hake. The secret routes
sailed by the Basques, the Gallegans,
long before Columbus.

And often they make another life
away from the rains of Galicia,
leaving their families on the calle des emigrantes

for a softer life away from here.
Señor Lobelinos has not done this.
He always returned with his catch

and now his daughter is a lawyer in Santiago,
his wife is round and happy. I ask him
What is his best moment, in his life with the fish.

In Canada, he tells me.
In a bar I heard my own name spoken
by an old man on a corner chair.

He was my grandfather. We were there
the whole afternoon. That was when I knew
that the bitter season means nothing

because though the sea draws us out
and we are scattered,
there is a magnet at the root of the world

that lands us together face to face.

(Magma Poetry competition winner, 2006)

The poet and teacher Julia Casterton heard the news that she had won a national competition for poems based on the word "fishing" a week before her death at the age of 54. Read the obituary for Julia Casterton in the Guardian.

(for daisy, who was taking a class with her at the time of her death)

More from Julia Casterton on the London lit blog Eyewear.

Technorati Tags: fishing, poetry, obituary