Is afterthought a word? I think it is. I have many afterthoughts about homework with my children. Often they come to me in poems.Writing poems is how I make sense of my brain and the world around me. Today I’m posting what amounts to a rough draft, since it’s by me. I dash of poetry in spare moments, and sometimes I think I won’t find time to edit it until my youngest is in high school. So it goes. And here I go. I really tried to find someone’s else poem for today, but I can’t decide on one. So with spring break just hours away with no homework for the next 8 days (hooray), here’s a little poem I wrote a few months ago.

 

Studying Division

 

The language of patience is

fragile, not like my voice

that rises in volume

alongside frustration

until I’m riding the wave

I want to slide off of

until I toss the math book

aside in favor of desert

for two with time for breathing

before we go back to

dividends and quotients

although I still can’t recall

why math is important

I see the large fact

that teaching it to her

is teaching me patience.

-Nancy Schatz Alton