April is National Poetry Month!

I penned a couple with my students for National Poetry Month. We used the Pablo Neruda poem "You Will Remember" as a spring board. Of course, I went back to my childhood haunts... I invite you to pen a poem for April as well!

You Will Remember
By Pablo Neruda

You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.

You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.

You'll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.

That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.

House on Jones Road

By Noriko Nakada
Inspired by Pablo Neruda’s “You Will Remember”

The house stands tall casting dark shadows.

The willow grows still, a tether of weeping branches.

Stiff roots press solid clay,

And water falls past those same shadows.

Breezes blow past carrying the same scents

In thin mountain air around a tall gray house.

The Deschutes
Inspired by Pablo Neruda’s “You Will Remember”

In town
Your water
Flows like glass
Slowness and mirrors
River as pond
And stones stand still.

Where you narrow
Water comes to life
The smooth click of rock
Striking rock
A rush of sound
And you tumble on.