Today’s prompt was a fun one. I had to find a factual article about an animal. I needed to go through the article and replace the name of the animal with something else and then rearrange and edit into a poem.

I chose an article in National Geography on sandhill cranes and replaced “sandhill crane”with “middle schooler”.

Middle School and More

The sound that signals spring
more than any other sound 
is the rattling, staccato calls 
of gangly middle schoolers 

winging their way into class.
Sitting shivering amid 
the chickweed, dandelion greens,
and residual remains 

of sedge grasses, I find them 
listening intently to gossip
as only pre-teens can do.
I notice how they call 

to each other with a kind of 
guttural growling texture
like a spoon raking rhythmically 
over a metal washboard. 

Spring brings all varieties
to the yard—the trumpeters, 
the secretive, the seasoned 
by siblings, the happy-go-lucky.

But the true spring showstopper
is the middle schooler who jogs 
across the schoolyard, wraps his arms
around me and says, “Love you, mom.”

—A Draft Poem for my own Little Wonder with love from Mama

Let me know what you think in the comments below. 🤗