sharing a love of what nature can teach us
The notice on the feed bag boasts of variety:
white prosco millet, black oil sunflower, milo
and safflower. A brilliant mix of pale yellows and mud
browns in sizes and markings so varied I could spend
a lifetime trying to understand how everything in nature is
so particular and purposeful: a key meant for one specific door.
As we begin National Poetry Month, we ask: what is poetry and why is it important?
by Laura Parker Roerden I first met Peter Yarrow in 1998, when I attended a launch meeting at McGraw Hill in New York City for Operation Respect, an international anti-bullying program that Peter had just founded. I would be representing Educators for Social Responsibility (now Engaging Schools), where I was at the time the publicationsContinue reading “For Peter Yarrow”
by Laura Parker Roerden I am just human scaled, in a world that has become too big to hold. Here, this morning, a bird calls out to me, I look up and see an eastern bluebird alit on the fence. Its song is startling in the silence, as it has something urgent to convey. IContinue reading “A Prayer”
Seeds, seeds, seeds. . .they are falling everywhere and landing on the ground. They are lit as if to not be missed. They will, come spring, throw shoots and grow where they have landed. And we will not be able to deny that we saw them as they fell.
(Previously published in The Disruptive Quarterly Journal) by Laura Parker Roerden Something about the way we’ve done youth development for the past few decades no longer feels right to me. The times have changed; and with it, so have we all. Ocean Matters, a service-learning program for teens, conducted an expedition in Grand Cayman, BritishContinue reading “Youth Development in a Hurricane”
Laura Parker Roerden’s work explores and promotes the development of social, emotional, and ethical development in young people towards creating socially-responsible adults, i.e. those who participate in democracy, positively contribute to their communities, and are stewards for the natural world. Research shows that nurturing healthy relationships with peers, adults in their life and with the natural world can provide young people with theContinue reading “Ocean Matters”
by Laura Parker Roerden Last night the stars made our hayfield into a bed. Twinkling and turning from light to dark, and back again to light in the dark tangle of knotted weeds and swords of grass, sometimes in synchrony, but often as chaos. The perfect flat disk of a full moon spilled shadow everywhere,Continue reading “The Fireflies”
by Laura Parker Roerden I wrote a poem: it’s hard to say what it is. It’s small like a bird, but it has wings that open, wide enough to receive the shadow from starlight where monsters writhe and inform us of who we are through ancient story and song or simply the daily news. IContinue reading “A Good Friday”
by Laura Parker Roerden A flower is not just a flower. It’s an invitation to dance, to fall into a time and a tempo not of your own wherein lies the meaning of being made of soil and sun, tapped lightly in place by fingers of rain. Don’t miss another post: including #FridayPoems and FromContinue reading “All the Many Flowers”
