Virtual Poetry
By: Daniel Tyx
Like schools all over the world, MFS made the transition to online school for the last quarter due to the coronavirus. It was a difficult time for everyone, as we found ourselves learning and teaching in front of computer screens, instead of surrounded by our community of friends, teachers, students, and colleagues.
As part of our online curriculum, my 7/8 and 11/12 English classes studied poetry as a way to process all of the changes happening around us. We read poems about dealing with isolation and finding strength in hard times, and shared our own responses and experiences. We also tried our hand at writing our own poems.
To my surprise, many of these poems were not concerned primarily with isolation or anxiety, but rather with seeking connections–with forests and farms, with friends and loved ones, and with the world beyond Montverde. Even though they were written at home, outside of the physical space of school, they reminded me that at this moment more than ever we are joined together in one family as a school, community, country, and world.
Here are just a few of the poems that were written by students during online school:
Old Tree
If you’re confused
and can’t decide on what to do
just go to the old tree
and lay under its branches.
Soak up all of the wisdom
that it’s willing to share with you.
But you must be patient.
Only then
everything will slowly,
but surely,
fall into place.
Changes
Winter arrives
and everything changes.
The breeze is fresh,
coming from far horizons
on the landscape which
shape-shifts before my eyes.
The birds let forth
their tune of happiness,
cicadas sprinkle the air
with acoustical stardust.
The wet blanket of grass
calls for a cup of coffee,
for looking out through windows from my bed.
Every leaf and cell swells with rain, and
green is greener,
love is clearer,
a glassy and lucid vision
for a new lap around the sun.
The Cloud Forest Is My Mother
I say feed me.
She gives me yellow maracuya on a beautiful green vine.
I say tease me.
She directs sun rays onto my skin.
I say frighten me.
She unleashes all her wildly beasts.
I say hold me.
She wraps me in tangly vines.
I say heal me.
She fills my lungs with the scent of fresh air.
I say caress me.
She strokes my skin with her gust of cold wind.
I say make me beautiful.
She gives me wonderful orchids.
I say sing to me.
She chants her lovely lullabies.
I say teach me.
She shows me the rain, clouds, and the sun.
El bosque nuboso es mi madre.
The cloud forest is my mother.
El bosque es mi madre preciosa.
