Daylight Savings Time

Um, this is a quick poem written in the car awhile back on Daylights Saving Day (or what is it called, the switch from Daylights Saving into Standard?)

I wonder where that extra hour
Has been biding its time.
Maybe it's been in the fruit bowl
Next to apples and lime.

Perhaps that hour had disappeared
Where the electrons go
When they, from the exothermic
To endothermic flow.

Has the extra hour hidden
With the missing pencils
In a box with socks and needles
Tiny toys and stencils.

Maybe its stashed itself away
Inside the pages of a book
Or curled inside a leaf
Or in any cranny or nook.

I don't know where that hour went
Whether it hid or flew
But I do know that I slept in
And got up on time, too.


Please don't laugh. Yes, I was having trouble with my chemistry assignments when I wrote this (I still don't know where those electrons go). And that drawer with all the stuff also has batteries, hair ties, books, erasers, flashlights, etc.
What does that "missing drawer" have in your house?

Poems

Yesterday (Saturday) my volleyball team had our tournament! We lost :( We had alot of fun, though! Not much else has been going on, so I have no new pictures for you. However, I have two poems- not by me! On the way down to Springfield for the tournament, Dad issued us a "poem challenge". We had to write a poem about the sand fairies. For this to make sense to you, I had better explain what the Sand Fairies are. Awhile back, we were all outside playing in the sand and building piles and such. Since we were using dry sand, the wind would knock little bits off the edges of our castles. Dad said that that was the Sand Fairies. These fairies are too fast to see, but you can see the bits of sand that their feet knock around as they run. Adelynn spent a long time making castles for them. She was so funny! Dad told her to try and catch a sand fairy. She asked how. Dad pointed to a small bucket and told her to try to capture one in that. Aghast, Adelynn stared and said knowingly, "You can't trap it! The Fairy Queen will put a spell on you!" Nick did not know what to think. He came up to me and said, "It's just the wind blowing the sand around," and then very quietly, "Isn't it?" William played right along and built a whole little world for the fairies. After a while he got bored and decided that he needed a battle. So he made the spiders be attacking the fairies! "Attack of the spiders!"
Anyway, I am getting side tracked. The point of this post is to show the awesome poem that William came up with. Ben wrote a neat poem that he did not finish, and I made a poem that was not very good. Maybe I'll post those later. He did not use stanzas, so I am just writing this the way it was on his paper.

When the Sand Fairies Came Out To Dance
By William Rackers
On the most common of days, with the gentlest breezes, the sand fairies came out to dance! Oh, how fair and fast they danced. They danced so fast even those with the "sight" could not get more than a glimpse of them. The sand all around was flying everywhere! going, "pow tow zow tow fow now"! And I could just hear the music so wild and fast: dum dee dee dam dum dee dee dam dum dum dum dee dee dam, over the sand hills we go dee dee dum. They flew over the little sand hills: dum dam dee dee dum dee dee dee dum dam dee dee de dum. How long they danced! How long! How long! They danced through the night! The the sand fairies' King stopped and said, "My people, we have danced through the big people's sleep time. Sadly it is time to stop" "What! We dance so fast the big people can't see us! Even those with the 'sight'!" cried the crowd of fairies. "Silence," yelled the king, "They can still see the sand flying under our feet! They will wonder! And we can not dance through the day too! So dance to your beds if you want! Just go!" The crowd subsided and went. But a few started dancing to bed.

It was interesting to see the differences in each of our poems. We each expressed our own ideas of the sand fairies in our own way. Anyway, later, while I was playing my games at the tournament, Ben wrote an awesome poem. He is really big into blacksmithing at the moment, and wants to make stuff for movies when he grows up. Here is Ben's poem:

By Ben Rackers
There he stood behind the fire
Doing the trade he learned from his sire
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him
So there he raised his hammar up high
And let it fall to the height of his thigh
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him
Drawing it long and making it stout
Drenching it in water and taking it out
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him
Polishing it upon a great stone
And using the stone to make it hone
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him.

I have such a miserably hard time writing poems with rhythm and rhyme. Ben does it so beautifully. And William is so full of great creative ideas. If he would only write it down more, we would have books full of great poems and stories.

Ben's Second Awesome Poem

OK, watch out world, Ben wrote another poem. This is a continuation of his last week's English lesson, in which he had to write a poem in the style of one that was in his book. I did this same course last year, and I think that the poem I wrote was about a cherry sucker in a bag of candy (weird, yes. I know). Well, I think that Ben's way beats mine! Read away:

A silver-clad knight and an enemy force
With their pikes and swords and bows
But yells he does a fearsome cry
And falls upon his foes
And falls upon his foes, my son
While like a bird unbeat
Here and there his great sword flies
The foe now at his feet

But lo, their numbers were far too great
For one man to beat them all
But nobly the knight fought on
Until he had to fall
But when he had to fall, my son
He didn't die for naught
For he took with him the enemy king
The One which he had sought.

Does that leave you at a loss for words, or what? I dunno, but I think that Ben might be fighting me for the post of biggest-writer-in-the-family. That is just super-awesome!

Not nearly as interesting, but still pretty cool: I took a picture of Adelynn at the first snow of last winter. Papa Archibald took the photo, turned it into black and white, and put it on Flickr. He says:

You can put on your blog that your photo of Addie in the snow on Flickr has reached 237 views with 21 comments and 9 favorite votes, if you want. Here's the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_a/2760147411/in/set-72157606792003309/

Check it out! And look at the rest of Papa's photos, too. He takes some awesome shots!!!

Ben's Poem

Ben wrote this for English class. I think that it's awesome! He had to write a poem following the same rhythm or rhyming patterns as another poem, I think.

An Archer Song
by Ben Rackers
A great archer and a far-off branch
An arrow that draws back
And bends the strong and trusted bow
Then strikes the smallest crack
Then strikes the smallest crack, my son
While like the branch that's free
Down the good bow snaps and falls
It's last day on his knee

Dancing

Marcus was so cute this morning. Adelynn was listening to some music, and he came up and started to do a strange sort of bouncy dance, and kept beat to the music with his hands. He didn't seem to get why we were all laughing with him, but just kept doing it more and more. Here is a short video of him:

Last night we watched The Water Horse. It was a very good movie. When we finished, it was lighting off in the distance. As always, I came up with a little verse about it.
There's something about this evening/ As I'm sitting in my robe/ Looking out through a silent room/ Out through the crystal- clear glass./ Far-off, in the distance/ Beyond the silhouettes of dark trees/ Lighting is falling and raining down/ A hundred-million waterfalls of light./ Each splash lights up the moonless sky/ And douses the clouds in pink light./ Like a candle the light flickers and wavers/ Shying away from the Earth/ It retreats into the darkened sky,/ Runs back to it's secretive home./ Behind it it leaves/ A shuddering memory/ Quick to fade as another light splashes./ Behind it it leaves/ A bittersweet touch/ And the thunder.
It was not really a "silent room" because Adelynn was screaming at me, with that relentless persistence of four year olds, to play tea-party with her. And I do not know if it really was a "moonless night": I just couldn't see the moon through the window.

Poetry and Quotes

Hi! Here are two poems I wrote the other night in the car. They aren't very good, and I have no particular reason for posting them on the blog other than I am wanting to kill a little bit of time by typing them. Although... there are hoards of other things to do, chasing me around in circles.... (there is no escaping a messy room, now, is there?)

coming out of a darkened sky;

oppressive gray that pressed on all sides-

the heart jumps at the sight of blue

as yellow warms the crystal air.

for the storm's pressure

is relieved

the hunched back now has straight shoulders

tired feet walk on soft grass and heather

and the weary soul is replenished

The twilight evening

Is splintered with shards of pink:

The last reminder of the ball of fire.

As the day slides across the globe

So the dreams dance their way to consciousness.

A violet ceases to be a flower

As the fairies claim it as their home.

A firefly is no more, instead,

A dash of pixie dust floats to the ground.

The sunlight clearing is a danceground

Where fauns and birds

Dance the dream through.

This is a sample of my spur-of-the-moment poetry writing, which I am not sure if it is really poetry at all. Nothing rhymes, there is no beat, no measure...

However, I know of someone else who write poems sort of like this (she is also a genius at art- literally, because she has been called the only living child prodigy of realistic art and poetry. She used to live here in Rolla!!!) http://www.artakiane.com/

Here is an interesting quote I read (still not sure what it is supposed to mean, but who cares? It makes you think!)

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time." -G.K. Chesterton

And another one, by the same guy:

"Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves."