Sunday, January 5, 2020

New Beginnings


Unsplash photo via Yann Allegre

New Beginnings

The water is cold. Give yourself the grace
to flounder until you find your flow.

Do your best. It's not a race.
The water is cold. Give yourself the grace
to choose your own rhythm, your own pace.
There is no right or wrong tempo.

The water is cold. Give yourself the grace
to flounder until you find your flow.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020



This poem is a triolet. The rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB.




6 comments:

  1. I love this! Cold water and jumping back into teaching- a perfect image. I think of that first minute when you jump into cold water and can't quite catch your breath. We have a day without kids tomorrow. Lots of meetings, but maybe a little time to plan and regroup.

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  2. I did! I gave myself the grace to arrive with NO planning, just a continuation of what we were doing on Dec. 20, so that 4's would find the familiar, and my two days last week were full of flow. Your first triolet is a success (and I like the unconventional arrangement, too).

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  3. Thank you for these lovely lines. I usually flounder gracelessly, but I'll try to remember "there is no right or wrong tempo."

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  4. Grace was my OLW in 2019. Will definitely need some tomorrow. This is a lovely example of the form.

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  5. Such good advice, ML. Sigh. This would be so good for me to internalize.

    I've never tried a triolet. I like the looping back quality of them, and yours has that feel to it. The word "tempo" is perfect. Thank you.

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