Poems to Ponder by Ginger Keller Gannaway

For April, National Poetry Month, I offer you a few Poems to Ponder:

1. “I Spy Babies” by Shane Gannaway (my son)

   

2. “Spring and Fall”  by Gerard Manly Hopkins (probably my favorite poem)
3. “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes (strong advice read by Viola Davis & the poet!)
4. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost (in memory of poet philosopher Ric Fox)
5. Hearts Under a Microscope by Gary Gannaway“Tis true. Science says it’s so.
   Each heart muscle cell
   Beats to its own rhythm.
   Under a microscope
   It looks like a tiny heart,
   And it sounds likeYour heart Your heart
   Your heart Your heart.Put another heart muscle cell
   Onto the same slide.
   And it will beat to its own
   Independent rhythm,
   And it sounds like

   Heart my Heart my
   Heart my Heart my.

   Once the cells touch,
   A miracle occurs.
   The two cells begin to beat as one,
   And they sound like

   Your heart My heart
   Your heart My heart
   Our heart Our heart
   Our heart Our heart.

   ‘Tis true. Science says it’s so.(Valentine’s Day, 2010)

   “Shoulders”  (cool class video)by Naomi Shihab Nye ( what the world needs now)

6. Shoulders
   A man crosses the street in rain,
   stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
   because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

   No car must splash him.
   No car drive too near to his shadow.

   This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
   but he’s not marked.
   Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
   HANDLE WITH CARE.

   His ear fills up with breathing.
   He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
   deep inside him.

   We’re not going to be able
   to live in this world
   if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
   with one another.

   The road will only be wide.
   The rain will never stop falling.