Birds

For the past three weeks, the girls have attended Sunday School via Zoom, sitting at our dining room table.  Because I'm always in their earshot, I have heard Father and Presvytera ask the kids to contributions to their weekly Kids' Newsletter.  Contributions such as artwork and poetry are encouraged, so last week Madeleine drew a picture and Julia wrote a poem. 

This week, the newsletter's theme is birds, and both girls decided to write a poem.  Madeleine's came easily, but Julia really struggled.

Here's her first attempt, which was clearly not coming from an inspired place, given its basic second-grade writing quality:

Doves by Julia Rowe
Small white bird
sitting peacefully
In a tree.
Making a faint,
sweet,
coo...coo

That got scribbled out. 



Here's attempt number two:

Doves by Julia Rowe
Peaceful

That's as far as she got on that one.




Another attempt:

(Untitled)
The pleasant
Melodious sound

That also got scribbled out. 




Next:

(Untitled)
As the sunlight
creeps in
from behind the trees

This got scribbled out as well, as Julia remembered last week's poem also talked about sunlight creeping in.




Final attempt is a winner, I think:

A Bird's Song by Julia Rowe
As the morning light
creeps in
through the window
the whole room is flooded
with the joyous,
melodious
voices.
They may just sound
like chirps and tweets,
but really
they are the key
to opening up
a whole world of happiness.
A symbol of spring,
a symbol of the
most holy of spirits.


That one is way better than the white dove sitting in a tree attempt.  Sometimes a writer just needs to go through a few revisions before striking gold!