{npm kidlit progressive poem}

It’s time! The lovely progressive poem has “progressed” for twenty days, and now it’s my turn! Here’s the panoply of poets playing this year:

April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose’s Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita at {fiction instead of lies}
April 22 *Patricia Franz
April 23 *Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors

(EDITED TO ADD – tomorrow’s line will be found at Rose’s blog, and the poem will go forward from there. Please skip Patricia for now. Thank you!)

For those of you new to the process: this NPM children’s poetry celebration was originally begun by Irene Latham, and the mantle taken up by Margaret Simon, who wrangled this year’s distracted poets into a cohesive whole. Linda M. started us off with a gloriously open April window…

April thus far has been a particularly scattered month for me, but reading poetry has been particularly grounding, especially seeing this poem grow in creation. In this April garden, nothing yet has come to grief. It is full of the actions of joy. As I breathed the “gift of the lilacs,” and imagined myself painting and breathing and dabbling and gamboling, I thought about what we verb-y activities we haven’t yet done in this poem – eaten, spoken, shouted, screamed/squealed, or slept (we’re playing in this garden alone, which is its own kind of delightful). I also meditated on the scents on my back porch just now of an evening – orange blossoms from my dwarf citrus tree. It almost feels like we opened that April window into a glorious morning, and now… taking my cue from the thanks at the “day’s end,” and “long-ago springs,” as well as Cousin Mary Lee’s flowering shrubs, I decided to forget about eating (I couldn’t figure out how to fit it in 😂) and drink in a sense of peace and rest. That’s what this April garden has given to me this month. Since we’ve stayed in four lines per stanza, I’ll add an ellipse and begin a new one…and then it’s over to you, Patricia Rose!

Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood
dappling daffodils with flair

Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
as hummingbirds thrum
in the blossoming Sweetgum

Sing as you set up the easels
dabble in the paints
echo the colors of lilac and phlox
commune without constraints

Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs
rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings
feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end
remember long-ago springs

Bask in a royal spring meadow
romp like a golden-doodle pup!
startle the sleeping grasshoppers
delight in each flowering shrub…

Drinking in orange-blossom twilight