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You are here: Home / Poems for Teachers / Poetry Friday: Honeybee

Poetry Friday: Honeybee

March 7, 2008 By Laura

 

I recently read Naomi Shihab Nye’s Honeybee, and I really enjoyed it. I admit that parts of it felt too preachy for me, and other parts a bit inaccessible. But so many poems from it really struck my heart. Here are just a few favorites out of the 80+ poems in this collection.

The United States Is Not the World

 

and this I was reminded of by
            mamas in silk saris
            grandpas in burgundy turbans,
                        smoky overcoats
            Sikh boys with powder-puff topknots
            braided girls munching Belgian chocolate
            and a gloomy little lad with a strange golden cone on his head

            Thank you, I said. O thank you Gate
                        D-4, Amsterdam to Delhi
            months of smug Americana dissolving
                        quickly
            as tiny white no-jetlag pills
                        on the tongue

 

–by Naomi Shihab Nye, all rights reserved

 

Don’t Say

 

God said.

You made it up

then put it in God’s pocket.

God may have thrown it out already.

 

–by Naomi Shihab Nye, all rights reserved

 

To One Now Grown

If we could start over, I would let you get dirtier.
Place your face in the food, it’s okay.

In trade for great metaphors,
the ones you used to spout every minute,
I’d extend your bedtime,
be more patient with tantrums,
never answer urgency with urgency,
try to stay serene.

In one scene you are screaming
and I stop the car.
What do I do next?
I can’t remember.
I have buried it in the drawer of small socks.

Give me the box of time.
Let’s make it bigger.
It’s all yours.

 

–by Naomi Shihab Nye, all rights reserved

The Poetry Friday roundup is at The Simple and the Ordinary!

Tagged With: Naomi Shihab Nye, poems, poetry books, Poetry Friday

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