by Betsy Franco
Mud sucked at
our bare feet
on the park ground,
soggy
with rain.
Grunts
snorts
guffaws
mixed with
spitting raindrops
and wind
in my ears.
Clutching the ball, I raced
down field till everyone
piled on
squooshing my
cheek into the sludge.
Nose filled with mud,
I wished we’d never
get called home for dinner.
Copyright © 2005 Betsy Franco. From the book Conversations With a Poet: Inviting Poetry Into K-12 Classrooms. Richard C. Owen Publishing. Reprinted by permission of the author.
I remember my sons coming home from playing football in the mud at the park during a rainstorm. I could tell where they’d been because they were exuberant, exhausted, and covered in mud.
Betsy Franco is the author of over 80 books, including a number of poetry collections. Her first was Mathematickles!–math haiku. Others include A Curious Collection of Cats, A Dazzling Display of Dogs, Messing Around on the Monkey Bars and Other School Poems in Two Voices, Counting Our Way to the 100th Day!, and Bees, Snails, & Peacock Tails. She also wrote a book especially for teachers of grades K-12, Conversations with a Poet.
Making math and science creative, sassy, and beautiful through poetry is one of her main goals. She even included poetry in her novel, Metamorphosis, Junior Year. Betsy encourages children to use her poetry as a jumping off place for their own creativity. Their poems are always delightful and insightful!
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