I began looking through some poetry I have written over the years and the first one I came across was this one called The Simple Life. I am going through the poetry, as I think with the time provided, I might look to put them into a coherent form and publish a book of poetry. I promised myself I would do this and have been given the time to work on project.
I enjoy solitude. For me, it is time to recharge batteries. Even on holidays, I spend time with Kathy and not many others. We visit family and friends, and hike. On the trail, we meet people to see plants and animals of the area.
It is good to be alone at times,
Sheltered by comforting trees,
The wind singing its song,
Here, I experience freedom and peace,
For the moment, worries set aside.
Minnows dart at the water’s edge,
Dancing between light and shadows,
Seemingly, without a care,
There, they experience home’s safety;
Its primal call.
Here, this is me,
I exist within a simple space;
An unseen hand beckons me,
I wave to this life,
Enjoying it each time I return;
Nature’s beauty gradually revealed.
I wrote the poem after spending the day hiking in Waterton Lake National. The one reference is to standing by the lake and watching minnows dart in and out of the sun and shadows. In Arizona, we hiked in an area of Buckeye called Skyline Regional Park.
I took the pictures below over five or six days as the cactus blossomed. As a result, we walked the same path with some variations over that time. We got to see nature’s beauty gradually being revealed.
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About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
An old poem, that is even. more meaningful now, with everything that is going on.
Hope you are well. Have a good weekend.
Be safe.
Yes, you should publish that collection. I have categorised and published mine, even if no one ever looks at it, it is one goal I have accomplished for my own satisfaction 😊
Yes, sometimes we have to do something for ourselves.
😊 yes
Lovely poem, Ivon. A beautiful capture of your experience in nature. I’m hoping many more will find their way back to nature in these times. It is essential to our collective healing, I feel. Be well.
Thank you Carrie.
Some of the most simplest things are the best. Peace and quiet heal. Stay safe 👍
They are Patrice. Maybe it is in times like this we get to realize how much we miss the ordinary and elevate to the extraordinary where it belongs.
Alone time is very important to me as long as I have the freedom to spend part of it in nature. Don’t fence me in! This is the perfect time for you to get your poetry collection together for publication. I’m working in a little time on a Civil War Diary that I’m putting together. It’s good we have things to occupy our mind…some don’t.
It is excellent that we occupy ourselves. Once it warms up this week, I will be able to do some walking and hiking. It has been unseasonable with snow and cold.
I love the solitude as well enjoy and be well.
It is nice to take time and just be. Stay well.
Same to you we will see the worst in the next 3 weeks 😦
That seems about right. It should be 3-5 weeks, depending on where people live.
Perfect poem for these days. I live further south than the Phoenix area but at an elevation of about 4600’ so our cactus blooming is just beginning.
Thank you Emilie. What was interesting, at least to me, was they were blooming and othes were without rain. It reminded me of the Easter Cactus my mother and mother-in-law had.
Beautiful, Ivon…
Thank you Bette.
That this concludes with cacti makes me smile. The only time my boys and I leave the house recently is to walk the dog. Recently, on such a walk, I looked at a weed-overtaken yard and asked, “Is that a cactus?!” My boys confirmed it was and I was, for whatever reasons, so very heartened. 🙂
They live and bloom in extreme conditions, so it makes sense it would grow in overgrown yard. They are survivors.
That park certainly gave you inspiration, even the cactus have a little flower. Great read as always.
How you manage to keep all your writing for years is beyond me, I certainly have to be more careful and put on the work at classifying my “poems” and keep them safe in someplace.
Thank you Charly. I am finding it a challenge to locate the poems and recall what brought them to mind. It is probably goes with the territory of writing poetry.
yES, IT IS GOOD TO COME ASIDE FOR A WHILE…!
It is.
😀
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
LIKE CACTI, WE GAIN FRUIT BY BEING ALONE FOR A WHILE!
We do.