when the students have left,
around the building:
faces crease with concern
bodies droop with fatigue
eyes anguished.
How long can the facade hold
when everyone’s
barely upright?
poem-overwhelmed November 16, 2020
just one day
I just need to be ready
for today
I can only plan
a step at a time
I can only plan
for today
I just need to be ready
just one day.
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(Feeling just a little overwhelmed to be starting back full-time after 2 years of partial medical leave. I’d hoped to have all prep done for the next 10 weeks, but all I have completely ready to go is this week. Well. Just tomorrow, actually! 
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poem-heavenly November 15, 2020
It should be dark.
The sun is down.
Moon glow illuminates
a snow glazed world.
Silent night.
Holy light.
poem- this is love November 13, 2020
The scrape of the snow shovel begins
just as my alarm rings.
The snow is heavy and ankle deep.
You should take my vehicle today, he says.
The studded tires stick to the road.
This is the safer route.
Be careful!
He doesn’t say I love you,
but I know it
anyway.
poem-they’re thinning the trees November 12, 2020
Pines and spruce tower
ninety feet into the air
a wall of green
a squirrel playground.
Broken by the last windstorm
Branches the size of adult legs snapped,
tangled,
blocking the road,
risking the roof.
With each roar of the chainsaw
years are cut away.
Now, we see the lights of town
glistening below.
Greenery sacrificed for urban beauty.
Our new view
comes with grief for the scent of spruce
in the waving wind.
poem- microcosm November 11, 2020
The newscast announces an IED*
blew up another patrol.
Dread descends.
My heart pounds.
I strain to hear the names.
Let him be safe.
Let him be safe.
One hundred fifty-eight other names were called.
A thousand prayers unheard.
A thousand exploded hearts.
He carries them all in his duffel
when he returns.
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#LestWeForget
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IED= improvised explosive device.
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A favourite student of mine fought in Afghanistan with the Canadian Armed Forces. As I listened at the radio during the time he was gone, I was conscious of what an entire generation of families must have felt as they listened to hear about all the boys and men of their communities fighting abroad. The magnification of the stress was easy to imagine. ‘My’ soldier returned safely to Canada and returned to the high school to speak in a Rembrance Day service a year or two later. I bawled my eyes out through the whole thing so thankful he was alive and whole. I’m thinking of him today, and all those families whose hearts were broken, not so long ago.
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poem-caught November 10, 2020
Poor tree
still dressed in golden finery,
weighed down by winter’s haste.
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poem-putting up the Christmas lights November 8, 2020
We’re going to wrap the outside tree.
Just round and round
says he,
but these are different colours
we should go up and down to mix,
she suggests too tentatively.
So now the tree is half one
half the other.
Divided territories,
instead of blended harmony.
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(Just a poem about what went on today as hubby and I put up the lights, and suddenly I’m reading it now and seeing it as a rather profound metaphor- also- where the heck did that rhyme come from? >shrug< Poetry, eh? It does its own thing!)
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Shawn L. Bird 