Joy Month
(If you seek Poetry Friday links – & if you’ve landed here, I’m hopeful you’ll want too, please visit with Laura.)
This may be an only post in my busy, 2nd-favorite month of the year.
I am thankful for so much, including your visits &
comments here through the year.
Before a light flight
by J.G. Annino
A silk garland
small patches
yellow, orange, black, white
lifting
falling,
a fluttering
shimmer
of poured sunshine.
c.2016JanGodownAnnino
Every year near here butterflies arrive to gorge on fuel.
Then they lift up to the sky for fall migration over the
gaping wide Gulf of Mexico.
To witness this feeding, as my husband & I did again recently,
always feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
c.2016JanGodownAnnino
Because this seasonal sight is so close to Thanksgiving,
it always helps me imagine the even more abundant sights of Nature,
that once were here & everywhere in this
Hemisphere as experienced by Native Americans/American Indians
hundreds of years ago.
In the upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving,
depictions of the Native families who farmed, fished, hunted
and lived in villages or on the move,
people who made art and clothing,
medicine and toys,
can be shared in well-meaning
but uninformed Thanksgiving ways.
Because I waited for years for someone in the
Seminole Tribe of Florida to write a book for children
about the astounding matriarch leader, Betty Mae Tiger Jumper,
before doing so myself, I am asked about resources
for families, schools, community youth groups & libraries.
If you have a similar interest here are starting places:
American Indians in Children’s Literature
National Museum of the American Indian
I also find these books to be helpful.
Any title by Joseph Bruchac
FATTY LEGS by Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fentonwith artwork from Liz Amini-holmes True story of an 8-year-old child.
A NATIVE AMERICAN THOUGHT OF IT by Rocky Landon with illustrations by David MacDonald
DO ALL INDIANS LIVE IN TIPIS? Questions & Answers from the National Museum of the American Indian
ENCOUNTER by Jane Yolen, illustrations by David Shannon
c.2016JanGodownAnnino
Happy Native American Heritage Month/November
Happy Thanksgiving/November
Happy National Novel Writing Month/November
