A Garden Poem

Ella and I stood side-by-side in the living room, silently looking out into the backyard.   Lawn chairs flipped over, painted with mud.  Toddler clothes peeled off and absentmindedly chucked into mud puddles.  A forgotten ice cream sandwich oozing its way toward the door.  Exhausting.  I was silently thinking, "Aaaaaaggggh!  A complete and utter disaster!  What the hell!"  I was thinking it, but I didn't say it.  I'm glad, because almost as soon as I finished my thought, Ella sighed, and said, "Mom, I love our backyard so much.  Isn't it beautiful?"  

This morning, as we watched our friendly backyard birds, Ella asked me some question about the European Starling.  It just so happens that I know a little something about the European Starling.  The starling was, in fact, one of the only birds I could identify in my Avian Ecology class.   Not to mention, I recently happened upon a little article which documents the history of the starling in the United States.  Little did Ella know that her question would shape the course of our entire day.  My history of the starling turned into a little biography of Shakespeare, which turned into an explanation of a play, which turned into my children's first dramatic poetry recitation.   Initially, I intended to convert one of their favorite stories into a play, but the task seemed a bit daunting, particularly in light of the number of lines the kids would have to memorize.  So, I decided to scale down the project and we agreed upon a short garden poem.  "Buried."  It's a poem about a potato.  In the winter.  For the recitation, the girls donned some of their favorite winter apparel.  Jude held a potato.  Well, mostly he threw the potato, but that is neither here nor there.

They were brilliant!