POEM - Prayer in My Boot - Naomi Shihab Nye

It is pouring outside, and I'm sitting in one of my favorites spots - on the outskirts of the inside of the Wilmot Library.  A large picture window is to my right.  It's really quiet, one of the quietest places I know, it's super dark outside (especially for Tucson) because of the major clouds, it's a Sunday afternoon with all sorts of possibilities in front of me....including the fact that I don't have to go to work tomorrow.  As a treat for myself, I went to the 810's to pull down some adult poetry to read.  I grabbed Billy Collins' 180 More (2005) and came upon a Naomi Shihab Nye poem within the first few pages.  Read it thrice.  Had to share.  She is such a magical writer to me.  Really special.

Prayer in my Boot

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth
how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids
and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows
and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given
and every future rough edge
and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Here's a bit of Naomi reading a poem that were her son's words when he was a little guy.....

"The Traveling Onion" - Naomi Shihab Nye

I went to my second "Introduction to Poetry Writing" class at the U of A Poetry Center tonight. We had to "critique" each other's poems. The assignment was to use repetition, and next week we have to write a story poem. It's very, very intimidating. I'll speak more on that at another time, just say I don't understand how so many of my students can clamor to share something they've just written. It sure is hard for me! But it did give me the chance to immerse myself in poetry for the first time in a long time, and I've stopped a few times this week to take the time to read my favorite poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. I love her poems, I love her essays. She creates the richest images I've ever read. What follows is one of my very favorites: The Traveling Onion When I think how far the onion has traveled just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise all small forgotten miracles, crackly paper peeling on the drainboard, pearly layers in smooth agreement, the way knife enters onion and onion falls apart on the chopping block, a history revealed. And I would never scold the onion for causing tears. It is right that tears fall for something small and forgotten. How at meal, we sit to eat, commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma but never on the translucence of onion, now limp, now divided, or its traditionally honorable career: For the sake of others, disappear. — Naomi Shihab Nye from Words Under the Words