Status Updates From I Am the Seed That Grew the...

October 9th:

Wind

Now has the wind a sound
Made out of rain;
A misty, broken secretness,
That drenches road and pane.
It drips and drips; a hush
Falls on the town;
Like golden clods and old tree shakes
Its apples down.

- Lizette Woodworth Reese

October 8th:

Cliché

They came between dusk blue
and the watery moon's rising,
arrows of geese
that made the sky a river
flecked with froth.

Their calling silvered the air,
reflected in glass and puddles,
made twilight a cliché.

But one small boy
who knew geese only from a picture book
watched,
gasped,
wondered.

- Alisson Chrisholm

October 5th:

Conkers

When chestnuts are hanging
Above the school yard,
They are little green sea-mines
Spiky and hard.

But when they fall bursting
And all the boys race,
Each shines like a jewel
In a satin case.

- Clive Sansom

October 4th (world animal day):

Hog In a Wood

Big black hog in a wood
On a truffle hunt.
Head stuck deep in the earth —
Grunt, snort, grunt.

Oh a hog's in heaven when is tongue
Is wrapped around a truffle.
His tail uncurls and his hog hearth
Performs a soft-shoe shuffle.

Big black hog in a wood
Chewing muddy truffles.
Great snout nosing them out —
Sniff, snuff, snuffles.

- Adrian Mitchell

October 1st:

The Leaves Are Green

The leaves are green
The nuts are brown,
They hang so high
They will not come down.

Leave them alone
Till frosty weather,
Then they will all
Come down together.

- Anonymous

September 30th:

New Sights

I like to see a new thing I know
Has not been seen before,
What's why I cut my apple through
To look into the core

It's nice to think, though many an eye
Has seen the ruddy skin,
Mine is the very first to spy
The five brown pips within.

- Anonymous

September 28th:

Poemology

an apple a day
is 365 apples

a poem a day
is 365 poems
most years

any doctor will tell you
it is easier to eat an apple
than to make a poem

it is also easier
to eat a poem
than to make an apple
but only
just.

but here
is what you do
to keep the doctor
out of it:

publish a poem
on your appletree

have an apple
in your next book

- Anselm Hollo

September 22nd (my dad's birthday):

Auguries of Innocence (Extract)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

September 21st:

Windsong

I am the seed
that grew the tree
that gave the wood
to make the page
to fill the book
with poetry.

- Judith Nicholls

September 18th:

Seven For a Secret

Seven black birds in a tree,
Count them and see what they be.
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy;
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret
That's never been told.

- Anonymous

September 13th:

The Ferns

High, high in the branches
the seawinds plunge and roar.
A storm is moving westward,
but here on the forest floor
the ferns have captured stillness.
A green sea growth they are.

The ferns lie underwater
in a light of the forest’s green.
Their motion is like stillness,
as if water shifts between
and a great storm quivers
through fathoms of green.

- Gene Baro

September 1st:

To a Red Kite

Fling
yourself
upon the sky.

Take the string
you need.
Ride high

high
above the park.
Tug and buck
and lark
with the wind.

Touch a cloud,
red kite.
Follow the wild geese
in their flight.

- Lilian Moore

Augustus 23rd:

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Augustus 10th:

The Mockingbird's Song

Rain, people, rain!
The rain is all around us
It is going to come pouring down,
And the summer will be fair to see,
The mockingbird has said so.

- Tigua song (translated by John Comfort Fillmore)

Augustus 2nd:

Until I Saw The Sea

Until I saw the sea
I did not know
that wind
could wrinkle water so.

I never knew
that sun
could splinter a whole sea of blue.

Nor
did I know before
a sea breathes in and out
upon a shore.

- Lilian Moore

July 30th:

The Falling Star

I saw a star slide down the sky,
Blinding the north as it went by,
Too lovely to be bought or sold,
Too burning and too quick to hold,
Good only to make wishes on
And then forever to be gone.

- Sara Teasdale

July 23rd:

Lavenders Blue

Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly,
Lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly, dilly,
You shall be queen.

Call up your men, dilly, dilly,
Set them to work,
Some to the plough, dilly, dilly,
Some to thy cart.

Some to make hay, dilly, dilly,
Some to tresh corn,
Whilst you and I, dilly, dilly,
Keep ourselves warm.

- Anonymous

July 16th:

A Dragonfly

When the heat of the summer
Made drowsy the land,
A dragonfly came
And sat on my hand,
With its blue jointed body,
And wings like spun glass,
It lit on my fingers
As though they were grass.

- Eleanor Farjeon

July 11th:

What Happens To The Colours?

What happens to the colors
when night replaces day?
What turns the wrens to ravens,
the trees to shades of gray?

Who paints away the garden
when the sky’s a sea of ink?
Who robs the sleeping flowers
of their purple and their pink?

What makes the midnight clover
Quiver black upon the lawn?
What happens to the colors?
What brings them back at dawn?

- Jack Prelutsky

July 4th:

Sea Cliff

Wave in wave
and green on rock
and white between
the splash and black
the crash and hiss
of the feathery fall,
the snap and shock
of the water wall
and the wall of rock:
after —
after the ebb-flow,
wet rock,
high —
high over the slapping green,
water sliding away
and the rock abiding,
new rock riding
out of spray.

A.J.M. Smith

June 28th:

Insect

Inspect
an insect
and you'll see
how perfect
it can be.

Listen,
and hear
the tiny song
it sings,

and bits of rainbow
glisten
on its wings.

- Tony Mitton

June 26th:

Leaf Boats

Rain
down
the
drain
is a waterfall.

A leaf sails along
A twig starts to float.

I watch
as they bob
and they bounce
down
the
drain.

I see
the rain
drowning
each tiny, wet boat.

- Myra Cohn Livingston

June 12th:

The Snail

At sunset, when the night-dews fall,
Out of the ivy on the wall
With horns outstretched and pointed tail
Comes the grey and noiseless snail.
On ivy stems she clambers down,
Carrying her house of brown.
Safe in the dark, no greedy eye
Can her tender body spy,
While she herself, a hungry thief,
Searches out the freshest leaf.
She travels on as best she can
Like a toppling caravan.

- James Reeves

May 27th:

Whispering Leaves

I am wondering
what it is
the leaves are whispering to me.
Which language they speak.
It doesn’t seem funny
but it might be.
It takes years
getting leaf ears
only there aren’t
many quiet days
to sit out and learn
leaf talk.
Leaves, I’m listening.

- Julie O'Callaghan

May 13th:

The Yellow Tulip

For weeks
it struggled
through the hard crust
of the spring earth
and a foot
of air

Just to be
scorched
by the sun
jolted
by raindrops
blasted
by the wind

But on this gentle
May morning
as it opens
yellow petals
to the sky

Nothing else matters

- George Swede