What Shall I Pack in the Box Marked “Summer”?
by Bobbi Katz

A handful of wind that I caught with a kite
A firefly’s flame in the dark of the night
The green grass of June that I tasted with toes
The flowers I knew from the tip of my nose
The clink of ice cubes in pink lemonade
The fourth of July Independence parade!
The sizzle of hot dogs, the fizzle of coke
Some pickles and mustard and barbecue smoke
The print of my fist in the palm of my mitt,
As I watched for the batter to strike out or hit
The splash of the water, the top-to-toe cool
Of a stretch-and-kick trip through a blue swimming pool
The tangle of night songs that slipped through my screen
Of crickets and insects too small to be seen
The seed pods that formed on the flowers to say
That Summer was packing her treasures away.

 

After an energetic discussion of Bobbi Katz’s poem plus a mini lesson brainstorming about our summers using our senses, we wrote our own responses to “What Shall I Pack in the Box Marked ‘Summer’?”  These will be appearing on the student blogs bit by bit this week as we finish our revising and proofreading during Writer’s Workshop, and we hope you enjoy them as the first flurries of the fall dance across New Hampshire and Vermont.