My Word of the Month poem and With kids in Paterson, New Jersey

BULLETIN: This morning my blog registered its 60,000th visit. Thanks to all!

REMINDER:Tonight at 10:00 CST is cutoff for this month’s Word of the Month poems!!!!

Hello everyone,

Here’s my Weather poem. I nearly missed the cutoff! I can’t seem to get my mind off storms. The published poem I posted earlier was stormy and so is this one.

Birth of a Monster

It had a birthing place
a dimple in a wave
in a vast sea

where air rose
and pressure dropped
above warm waters

where winds quickly
gathered forces
recruited might
around its one eye
that whirled toward its destiny
lying defenseless in the east

where this demonic freak
unleashed its fury upon the land
ripped off roofs
drowned cows in their fields
bobbed cars like colored marshmallows
down enraged streams

until spent at last it wept a final rain
destroyed one last village
died un-mourned
but well remembered.

Here are some pictures taken when I was working with students in Paterson last week. I’m home now for several weeks and look forward to enjoying the holidays with my family and catching up on answering and filing 1,000 e-mails.

School 29

School 29

School 26