Back in the home school classroom: Lingering leaf color, Robert Frost, and the cold days of fall

 The Bradford pears in our yard have the last color of fall after most other trees have shed their leaves. On a cold, overcast day that saw snow showers, this was the view from my house looking toward the Appalachians.

The golds and maroons of autumn made a beautiful fall arrangement in the yard, the last of the leaves from 2011. The crisp days and cold night reminded me of a favored poem with my children, one my daughter liked so much that she memorized it and can recall it to this day.

The much-loved poet in our home school classroom was Robert Frost. He had poems for every season and we enjoyed reading them throughout the year. In the fall, "The last word of a Blue Bird (as told to a child)," was read and recited over and over and, even as other poetry was read and embraced, it remained a tradition for sixteen years in our home school classroom.

The Last Word of a Blue Bird
as told to a child

As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, "Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for the skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax-
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing."

~Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Photos by Lynn R. Mitchell
17 November 2011