potw: the little turtle

May 17, 2011

We have missed our poem of the week the last few weeks, but I am trying to get my children’s lives back to normal and have our normal school routine each day. With all the phone calls, doctor’s appointments, and I’m-a-nervous-wreck going on, I needed to regroup, refocus, and recommit to nurturing them. One of those nurturing habits is our poem of the week. It brings a rhythm to our lives and bonds us together as we learn the words of a poem each week. I am reminded of my recent thoughts on how I want my home to feel…in light of this lump, I am thinking ever more seriously about how I want my home to feel…how I want my children to remember me if I am taken home before my old age (and NO, I am not saying I am thinking I am going to die…not thinking that…it’s just that as this lump is staring me in the face, I am thinking more seriously about my mothering…really about my living…but especially about my mothering).

This week’s poem is an old favorite and I think even my littlest people will be able to memorize it completely. I love the quaintness, the cadence, and the delight it gives us to recite it. The excitement and suspense builds until the last line when we all shout out, “But he didn’t catch me!”

The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay

There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a mosquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn’t catch me.