Poetry Friday - Wish upon a star

In the news this week - aside from the numerous posts flying around about being GDPR compliant - was Wednesday night's attempt at passing the Guinness World Record for the most number of people looking at the night sky through telescopes at once. ABC's Stargazing Live enlisted the help of thousands of Australians across the country to take part. In 2015, 7,960 people set the record - this year the sort of official tally was over 40,000! Throw in a couple of new supernova sightings and you get one astronomical party :) (pun intended)

For this week’s contribution I decided to write a mask poem from the point of view of the night sky. There’s so many forms and being kind of a newbie at poetry (unless you count all those angsty teen poems scribbled in notebooks from high school) I find it difficult figuring out where to start. Anyway, a quick attempt on my part.

Is it me or did the sky start to sound creepy in the end?

The Night Sky

Across the land
thousands gazed
through telescopes
a lunar haze

But what you see
is just a part,
No one knows
the end or start.

Billions have died
in my sky before
Planets, stars
and so much more.

Soon you’ll be
with me too,
You're part of me
and I,
you.

(c) e. mauger

Maybe one of these days I’ll have the Poetry Friday schedule on this blog, but in the meantime I have to get the scoop elsewhere. This week is hosted by Margaret on Reflections on the Teche.

Have a good weekend!

Poetry Friday - Library livin'

I've been listening to NPR's Story Corps podcast lately. The episodes are quite short so it's easy to get through a few of them. You can learn a lot from listening to simple stories of the lives of others. Of course everyone has a story, but how often are we open to asking about them? Last week I came across a story of an older gentleman who spent some of his childhood inside of a library when his father was a custodian at the New York City Library in the 50's, and later on raised his daughter there until she was 5. You can read/hear more about it here.

And that, my friends, was my inspiration for this week's Poetry Friday.

Library Livin'

From the street

you never know

the secret life I live

behind these doors.

Shovelling coal

to keep things warm,

dusting shelves

till they shine gold. 

But sometimes when my friends come by,

I bury my face and try to hide.

And even though at first it seems

that shame adorns these books and things,

I think upon my privilege

cause words provide the knowledge

that no money can buy. 

So come on by

the library!

It is my home

and no matter what,
my home it will always be.

(c) e. mauger

This week's Poetry Friday host will be over at Sloth Reads. Go on and see what else is happening! 

Poetry Friday

From the Mouths of Babes

Belly

Bird

Yummy (too)

Wow

Momma

Vroom Vroom

No 

Bear

Uh oh 

Moo

These are the words

I say to you.

- © e.mauger

After discovering Poetry Friday I was excited that for at least one day of the week I'd have a guaranteed topic. For those of you who aren't familiar you can find more information here from the No Water River blog. April was National Poetry month and many clever poets came up with projects to busy themselves with. Over at Poem Farm, Amy VanDerwater spent the last month writing about the constellation Orion in 30 different ways. I wanted to try my hand at something so I just chose the first form on her list, which incidentally is a list poem!

I fought with topics like the weather, but after re-reading some words I scribbled down earlier today I realised that they had a certain rhythm to them. I wanted to do an inventory of some of the words my two-year-old says. He was born a few months early, and because of the higher risk of developmental delays for prems I've become more interested generally in early childhood education and issues around speech and language. More about that later on this blog - probably.

Anywho, this Friday's roundup is being hosted by Brenda over at Friendly Fairy Tales

Welcome to the water's edge

Hello little blog.

I confess. I'm not much of a swimmer, which is bad considering I live on the island-like continent of Australia. But perhaps it's apt to start out calling this blog 'The Water's Edge'.

Sometimes you don't know where you're going until you make a start. Both fear and wonder hold you at the edge of a vast ocean. And even when you commit to taking the plunge you're bound to find something unexpected - new twists, new turns. The wonder that kids have in abundance and the desire to follow it is sometimes lacking in adults. But we can reconnect with our childlike wonder by thinking back to who we once were and examining the world the next generation is faced with.

This blog is a place for me to navigate my thoughts with regard to the world of kidlit - both writing and the illustrations that often accompany them - as well as education and the journey children go through from infancy and beyond. This work in progress will likely change the further along it goes, as all things do.

Hope I get to meet some new friends along the way. My next post will be for this week's instalment for 'Poetry Friday'!