When most people think of Florida, they think of beaches and palm trees. Tallahassee, however, is in north Florida, and our climate and topography is more like Georgia . . . rolling hills and red clay soil. Many of our trees are also deciduous. We even have about a month of night-time freezing temperatures. But spring has finally arrived in Tallahassee. My students clustered or mapped all the signs of spring they are noticing. Then they each wrote one line for this collaborative poem.
Springtime Tallahassee
Raindrops, like watery nails, pound on our roofs,
Flowers explode from their buds:
red tulips, shaped like lightbulbs,
white daisies, banana splits on sticks,
dandelions, their seeds like spring snow,
honeysuckles, a sticky delilght.
Barred owls hoot like a clarinet playing scales.
On warm thermals, eagles soar and climb like inflated grocery bills.
Tiny striped kestrels hover, waiting to trick their foolish prey.
Creepy crawly caterpillars create delightful, delicate monarch butterflies.
Eastern bluebirds feast on fuzzy moth caterpillars in mystic, white dogwood
trees.
Fields of scarlet clover bloom, make people sneeze, and tickle their knees.
Pine trees leave a slim layer of dusty yellow pollen.
The butterfly soars like a flower in the wind.
Blueberries on my tongue - an exquisite, fresh, misty, purple taste.
Goldfinches blanket our yards like thousands of bright-yellow sunbeams.
A possum searching blindly for grubs crossing the road is smooshed like a
pancake; now he's a divine meal for hungry vultures!
Hummingbirds materialize on flowers and feeders like tiny darts shot from
a rifle.
Tourists rush in like a fast flowing river.
The blue jay mimics the hawk's scream and the cricket's buzz.
Loons, preparing to leave dazzling springtime Tallahassee, wing above,
sailing on the wind.
And warm, humid days begin to drag on and on, like telephone wire into
endless space.
A collaborative poem about the signs of spring by,
Academic Resource Center students
Tallahassee, FL
Sandy Beck
Academic Resource Center
500 N. Appleyard Dr.
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Phone: (904) 487-1957
FAX: (904) 487-9854
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