Now Choose Life

Choose Life in the after- after the spouse dies, after the marriage ends, after the kids leave

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Poetry Tuesday- April is Poetry Month

April 10, 2018 by Sharon

April is poetry month. I have always loved poetry. I like rhyming poems better than free verse, but I love reading powerful words and poetry always packs a punch of meaning!!

One of my favorite memories with my sister is when we went together to hear Caroline Kennedy speak in San Antonio on April 28, 2011. She had just published her anthology, She Walks In Beauty, A Woman’s Journey Through Poems.

She told a story about her mother that I loved. She said when she was a little girl, she and her little brother, JFK Jr. didn’t buy their mother presents for her birthday or Christmas. All her mother wanted was for them to give her a poem that they had picked for her. I love the idea of having children learn the importance of poetry by having them give it as a gift. I also love that they will have a mental library of great poems they have memorized! I plan on using that strategy with my future grandchildren. There will be no gifts for this granny– All I will want is a poem recited just for me!!!

April is a month that really makes me miss my job as a middle school librarian. I had a great English department to work with, and we had nurtured a very special day at our school. Every April we celebrated a great day of poetry with “Poem In Your Pocket Day.” It was an idea we took from New York City and made it our own special day of poetry reading, sidewalk chalk poems, poetry slams during lunch– a love of all things poetry. I miss that special day!!!

In honor of Poetry Month, I will devote every Tuesday to one of my favorite poems!! Be sure to check back each Tuesday because I probably won’t publicize them all!!

So here is today’s poem: I hope you enjoy it as much as I always have.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

This poem makes me think of my grandmother who grew daffodils in her yard. There are numerous 
daffodils blooming all over my little hometown right now- I love it!!

My kids with my Grandmother’s daffodils in OKC- 1997.

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After her husband’s sudden and unexpected death, Sharon McCuistian found herself a widow at the age of 48. With two grown children in college, Sharon had to find a way to live in her new reality. She turned to the things she loved to help in her grief: faith, family, and friends. Her love of words and writing became the cathartic venue by which she began to process her loss. It is through her grief journey that Now Choose Life was born. Read More

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