It’s Monday. First day of Spring Break. I’m making lists. A big part of me wants to do a whole lot of nothing. I battle with myself over being productive and being lazy. Something in between the two has always been difficult for me. Writing a list poem on a post makes it a bit less random, more thought out, less likely to be lost, than it would be on a post it.
What I need to do.
Organize
the closet, the library:
pack away the tried and true,
dust off boxed up treasures,
pull out the new,
set aside the unused,
the unneeded few.
Maintenance
Time set aside for
the necessary,
the things I can’t ignore:
handyman, doctor, dentist, vet
no excuses, no more.
Planning
It starts as a curse but develops
into dreaming:
lessons, books, discoveries.
Suddenly work is seeming
to be what I want to do:
writing and reading.
For more fun with list poems see Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s The Poetry Farm and Ken Nesbitt’s Poetry4kids.
Glad I’m playing with poetry! Thank you fellow poet bloggers who are reaching for more in their lives and in their teaching. It’s nice to journey together. Check Leigh Anne, Michelle, Margaret, Kevin, Mary Lee, and Cathy’s blogs for more poetry inspiration.
To Read To Write To Be 
I make lists all the time. Spring Break starts for me on Friday and at the top of the list is a writing retreat on Monday and Tuesday, a gift to myself. Hope you get all this done. It’s quite a long list.
This is just wonderful, Julieanne, a list for break that fits most all of us, but I love the rhythm and the rhyme. I’m glad you’re playing with poetry, too!
I really hope you get to the bottom of the list – reading and writing! It seems I have had little time for either lately. I saw two big night crawlers on the road today after a rain. That is what I seem to be focusing on but it doesn’t sound very poetic! 🙂
Your list poem speaks to many of us. The battle between the should and the want. I am taking the less productive path for my spring break.
Love this line and so, I kept it going:
It starts as a curse but develops
into dreaming …
a construction of fences
to cordon off the poems
from the stories, from the essays,
from the lists of what I have to do
when I have the time to do it
when all I want to do is jump the fences
and wallow in the words.
🙂
Kevin
As others have mentioned, this is my list for the week also. Trying to spend a little time on each type of task each day so I feel like I’m making progress! Enjoy your vacation!