Flurry, Float, and Fly!

The first falling of gentle snow is magical and so is Laura Purdie Salas' new book, "Flurry, Float, and Fly - The Story of a Snowstorm". 

Growing up in Central New York, reminds me of the beautiful illustration on the cover of Laura's book. Lovely white snowflakes descending into billowy snow piles is an annual weather scene in Syracuse, NY that occurrs from November to Easter. As you can see from the scene to the left, Illustrator, Chiara Fedele, captures the joy of children frolicking in piles of snowy wonder, taking me back to my own early snow days. 

Author and poet Laura Purdie Salas did not live in a wintery, snowy climate when she was a child and wished for snow. Perhaps this is why she fell in love with winters in Minnesota and shares her joy in this book that opens with color changes in clouds and the wish for snow.

As you read on, the lyrical rhyming and the gorgeous winter scenes mix with meteorological wording give a magical tone to the storyline. "From the north, a polar freeze... from the south, a humid breeze. All winds advance. They mix and dance."  Can you feel the cold and imagine the winds dancing in the sky? This amazing children's book moves on to a beautiful two-page display of a variety of snowflakes with rhyme and the repetition of the title: "Stars and columns fill the sky with dreams to flurry, float, and fly."

It is no wonder that the Kirkus Reviews writes that "deft wordplay and lovely art blend for a tale of a most magical snowy day".

Mid-book a gorgeous scene and lyrical verse not only introduces words that share the serenity of snowflakes drifting downward but a sky of layered colors.

I found many tranquil scenes in the book. One in particular showcases a country house covered by fleeting snow at evening time. Ahh, how lovely!

The ending takes the reader back to the excitement of children enjoying  winter fun outdoors. Laura Purdie Salas offers much more beyond the story. On her website's book page, she shares many resources including, 4 short videos (from the publisher, 2 short writings about her process, 1 silly one to introduce a science weather concept), several downloadable activity sheets, photos of one history of snow, winter poems, and links for educators. Laura also offers a Giveaway to teachers that add student's snowflakes to her Snowflakes Padlet. You can find that here and so many more classroom activities, such us back matter on the science of snow. 

Add this book to your classroom and school library so children can engage in the magic of a snowstorm. A read aloud of the book in the reading corner following with a discussion on how the science of snow blends with poetry is an excellent starter. Be creative with the multiple activities that Laura Purdie Salas offers so they can reflect on nature and the season of winter. Create a Flurry, Float, and Fly! bulletin board to bring winter inside, although the season is not officially here. Meteorologists are already sharing news as the first snowfall moves across the states. So teachers, enjoy the first snowfall virtually or in real time with your students. Create a Flurry, Float, and Fly! bulletin board to bring winter inside, although the season is not officially here. Add in this lovely quote by Lewis Carroll. 

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that It kisses then so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.' " 

I am adding an equation poem, the format comes from Laura Purdie Salas' Classroom Connections posts. This poem, Flurry, Float, and Fly! connects me with her book and follow-up classroom topic.

snow + imagination + creativity = classroom fun

Today is Flurry, Float, and Fly!'s Book Birthday - 

🎂 the Official Publication Date! 🎂

Thank you, Laura and  Ciara for creating this wonder-filled book. 

____________________________________________________________________

This Slice of Life is dedicated to the educators who provide noteworthy books to their students and family members who continue the art of reading in their homes.

at Two Writing Teachers

Doubt on the Spiriutal Journey

What is on my mind?

Katie Moum, Unsplash

photographer

How does doubt affect me when grief knocks on my door?

At the Poetry Friday Roundup on November 2nd, one of Tricia Stohr-Hunt's lines in her burning haibun prose struck me. "I am only moving, carrying the weight of my own doubt."  I immediately paused to reflect on this thought and evening dreams (sometimes nightmares) that have been burdening me. I knew that I needed to be mindful. A mindful pause led to an intense pondering of my initial question above. With raw thoughts that fell from my heart, I quickly wrote a Golden Shovel poem using Tricia's lines below in italics as my strike line.

What is hiding deep in my soul?

As grief quickly enters and leaves repeatedly,     I

ponder its affect on my daily living.                         Am

I masking my fears and doubts,                                only

spending time worrying and                                    moving

as I try to manage my life that is now                      carrying

the heaviness of each day? Can I accomplish     the

task of handling my loss and dealing with the   weight

of loneliness in this chapter of life? Waves           of

jabbing grief nestle in the depths of                      my

heart. Is there a veil hiding my                                  own  

fragile, plaguing                                                            doubt?

Response to Grief and Doubt

Trees comforts me during the autumn of        life.

Brilliant colors sparkle while sunshine             is

Felt as a warm blessing, not to be                     changed

By grief. So flutter away doubt. Hope will     not

Be extinguished, nor love                                    ended.

©CVarsalona, 2025, free verse poem

     Dedicated to my husband who recently passed away

🍁🍃🍂

Thank you Patricia J. Franz for hosting this month's Spiritual Journey Thursday that focuses on doubt. I also thank you for sharing the insightful article,“The Drawer Where I Keep My Doubts” .

"Doubt, hesitation, unfinished questions, 'small hauntings'—

these aren’t failures of willpower, but the raw material of growth."  -Jeff DeGraff, Professor, author, essayist

Patricia asked an excellent question.

"Where does doubt fit into your spiritual journey?" 

The word, doubt, has been like a seed waiting to grow. It took root long before my husband passed away. It came and went like a roaring storm that gave no warning. Sometimes, it lingered in my mind without me knowing it. Other times, I pushed it aside when I found inspirational thoughts that gave me hope, such as the one below.

And so, friends, I am ready to move on once again, regardless of doubts that I hope to toss away.  I look forward to reading your blog posts on doubt. Enjoy the coming weekend.

🍁🍃🍂

Poetry Friday Friends, I started this week excited to dig deep into my poet-author friend Laura Purdie Salas' upcoming book, Furry, Float, and Fly!  It is a seasonal beauty, and I was ready to write a book review. But as life can throw some bumps in the road, my plans were taken over by grief surrounding me and my friends. I finished my Spiritual Journey blog post with good intentions, but time did not permit it. I hope to finish my review of Laura's fabulous book and have it ready for her publication date, Tuesday. Meanwhile, please visit Laura's welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup that you can find here at her blog. Enjoy Laura's winter thoughts, NCTE presenter news, and excitement for her book's birthday day. You will also find many blogs that are filled with poetic goodness from Poetry Friday friends.

Love is...

"At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet." - Plato

Valentine's Day has passed but love continues to stir in the chilled winter air. I notice that the deer family no longer jaunts across the woods but I see dog owners walking their pets daily. There is no doubt that the deer family and dog owners show their love by their actions. Even in the depth of winter, "Love is the greatest refreshment in life." (Pablo Picsso) For hundreds of years, love has renewed and rejuvenated us. 

love is

an elixir of life

renewing and energizing us

as we witness delicate snowflakes

dancing in the whistling wind-

as we unfold our journey

love is a freshly-draped blanket

wrapping us in spaces of warmth

while bringing hearts together

in synchronization

draft © CVarsalona, 2025

🩷

Love strikes a pose with 25 poems at my Heartnotes Padlet. May you enjoy the variety of poems and inspirational quotes that you many not have seen previously.

🩷

Love is the guide for the Holiday Poetry Swap led by Jone Rush MacCulloch. I hope to share all the beautiful postcards sent by Poetry Friday friends.

🩷

Love is a rainbow with poetic voice authored by Matt Forrest Esenwine (A Universe of Rainbows). It also features poems written by an amazing cast of poets. Matt's 2nd book that I will review is Tractor Dance.  My granddaughters enjoyed this board book and the signed autograph. I will add some of their thoughts to the review in the near future.

                       

I am late for the Poetry Friday Roundup because my husband was discharged from an 8-day stay in the hospital and I have to play nurse.

Golden Shovel Poem created for Day 20 on Laura Shovan's

13th Annual February Poetry Project

🩷

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by the fun-loving children's poet, Laura Purdie Salas. Laura is debuting two new books she wrote. I will join her for poetic goodness and hope you do also.

Gift of Your Heart

An anniversary is a time for roses, dinner out, and a pause from our household to-do lists. This year, I flashback to 48 years ago. I can still smell the scent of gardenias wrapped in love, the delicious taste of the Italian cookie tray carried throughout the reception by my Nonnie, and the late-night rain. Where has the time gone? Has it been cloaked in obligations, to-do lists, and expectancies? I wonder if we pause enough to consider the magnitude of the word togetherness?

I may not know the answers to the questions I pose but I do know that time has been full of fleeting moments sweeping throughout the decades. I peel through physical and virtual albums that hold a treasury of thoughts. Some pictures are faded from years of storage and others are memorialized. The heart knows what exists. 

I have been thinking about life lately. I surmise that life is a series of moments remembered in intentional pauses. Tucked away in each sacred moment there is a foundational piece called love. It floats in and out like the waves upon the shore. Love is the underlying emotion that knows no bounds. Is love sometimes hidden due to unexpected events and fears?

I have been taking a walk down memory lane awaiting the actual date and coincidentally came across the collage below. Anniversaries celebrate gifts of the heart so the collage and poems are my gift to my husband.

💗Another Year of Togetherness💗

💗

💗Gift of Your Heart💗

Within the bonds of love shall we give

streams of floating waves of

pause-itivity time to savor your

thoughts from the heart?

©CVarsalona, 2024

💗

As a child, I stared into the stain glass mural of St. Francis of Assisi each day I walked into grammar school. The following inspiration thought by St. Francis was quoted in The Sun & Moon Over Assisi by Gerard Thomas Straub.

Where there is love and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.

💗

Both my husband and I enjoy the writings of Kahlil Gibran. I offer his beautiful prose poem on love.

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the     pillars of   the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. -Kahlil Gibran

You can also read the lengthier piece, On Marriage found at the Poetry Foundation that holds this beautiful line: And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. 

💗

 

Join me at Laura Purdie Salas' blog post for this week's Poetry Friday Roundup. It's the book birthday for her new children's picture book, Line Leads the Way. Take a sneak peek to let the fun begin. I plan on sharing the short videos with my little grandgirls who will come to Grandma's house again. Then, off we go to our long-awaited, week-long, family beach vacation in Cape May, New Jersey.

This year, Little Lila makes her debut sitting on the sand

and Grandma and Grandpa celebrate year number 48.

Just One of Those Days

I have been working on a new-to-me-poem format for a few weeks. Have you ever tried many times to complete something that just would not gel? Here is my dilemma. I wanted to try to compose an Abracadabra poem. Unlike the phrase used in magical tales, the wish did not come easily as a 1-2-3. 

To make an Abracadabra poem with the proper rhyme scheme I needed to take out the "r"s in the word. I was left with an abacadaba rhyme making a 9-line poem also called a Magic 9 poem. While recuperating from a sinus-respiratory infection I have spent several weeks indoors. Every week, I have tried multiple times to create this poem. I went through draft after draft and finally settled on the following digital inspiration. The vase filled with flowers became the final inspiration that pushed me forward.

Abracadabra! Did you know that this word originally was part of Mesapotamia's Aramaic language? The phrase "avra kedabra" translates to "I create as I speak".  May you enjoy the magic of this poem that I send out to my Poetry Friday and Slicer friends. Excuse the lateness of this poem but I fell asleep this afternoon after a week of trying to get back into the flow of life.

 is hosted this week by

 a very talented kid-lit author, poet, and friend, Laura Purdie Salas.

She introduces us to her new book, Oskar's Voyage so

click here to read Laura's blog post. 

There are links to bring you to other writers' posts. 

Enjoy the Poetry Friday Roundup!

This blog post is also part of the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Story Challenge.

Day 8

Click here to read Slicers' Slice of Life for Day 8 of the writing challenge.

NOTE: I will travel to different blog posts and leave comments throughout the weekend.

Poetry Friday Wishes

For the past weeks, I have been wishing upon a star to make my dreams and my family's dreams come true. If you have not read my January blog posts you would not be familiar with my wishes that did come true so let me quickly summarize them. January was filled with the wish to switch from a rushed pace to a relaxed one. With that in mind, my dreams cascaded into thoughts of a magical land, hence a cascade poem evolved filled with wishes. A three-generation family vacation was planned by my daughter to the magical kingdom of Disney World with a cruise to the Bahamas on the new Disney Wish that followed.  Finally settled, the family shouted out their biggest argh as official pirate mateys who traveled the seas. A stand-alone wish to have a family vacation without my husband, son, and me getting COVID was granted but as fates would have it, the sirens of the Caribbean left their mark. I sit here covered in a red rash taking strong meds to bring my immune system back to normal, another wish that will be granted. The end is a tale as old of time for several trips in years that have past had medical issues surrounding them. From hurried to relaxed, I indulge in some quiet moments, With focused feelings and postcard imagery (a line from poet Alan Wright's poem) writing and recalling our fabulous trip to Disney. 

With focused feelings and postcard imagery

Wish You Were Here  by Alan Wright

magical touring

dipped in fairytale wonder

sparkles in a sea of amusement-

with focused feelings

and postcard imagery

I float in a pool of serenity

soaking in childhood delights

©CVarsalona, 2023

When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true!  

wishes are wisps of a dream come true

that

float

across

stars

that

transform

into

actions

that

come true-wishes are wisps of a dream

©CVarsalona, 2023

My thoughts float backward to a sandy beige beach with turquoise waters. A balloon filled with poetic essence transports me into a blissful state.

one word digital art concrete poem shared at my keynote presentation on Zoom last night

Click here to see the original concrete poem.

With gratitude for all the sweet memories of a family vacation, I bid you a bibbidi-boppity-boo wish for a magical day filled with color.

Please join me to celebrate the Poetry Friday Roundup with our host, Laura Shovan. Laura is showcasing Laura Purdie Salas' new nonfiction picture book, Finding Family: The Duckling Raised by Loons. 

I'm off to read all the poetic goodness provided by the Poetry Friday writers 

and then, join Laura Shovan's 11th Annual February Poetry Project.

Welcome Autumn's Precious Gifts

Because autumn is an unparalleled season of grandeur, it deserves praise as it opens its season.

I spent the better part of this week creating several scenes inside and outside my new home to give praise and thanksgiving for autumn. Join me as I welcome through the lens of digital art and poetry one of my favorite seasons. 

Autumn's arrival-

season goes viral.

Nature

has no denial-

Autumn's an idol.

Painter

of earth's revival.

Picturesque idyll-

Savor!

©CV, 2021 

The above poem is a laie, a French poetic form consiting of nine-lines that use and "a" and "b" rhyme in the following pattern: aabaabaab. The "a" rhyme iens are 5 syllable in length while the "b" rhyme lines are 2 syllable. I have looked at this format since Tricia Stohr-Hunt shared it at her May 21, 2021 blog Post.  

 

Gather autumn's precious gifts

in robes of golden sunrise.

Be glad for nature's blessings.

Gratitude abounds!

©CV, 2021 

The above poem is a dodoitsu poem created from the haiku oracle deck designed as a summer poetry swap gift from Mary Lee Hahn. It consists of four lines with a 7-7-7-5 syllable count. 

The digital photo above of my granddaughter and daughter in an apple orchard reminds me of the following quote from Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon: "It was a beautiful, bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it."

Gratitude Floats Through the Air

sweet smells of cider

bountiful trees of apples-

blessings of nature

©CV, 2021 

The Poetry Sisters offer a tanka challenge for September:  write a tanka, a five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 in response to an original poem from any of the Poetry Friday writers. After that, share it at Poetry Friday and add the tag #PoetryPals on social media.  Below is my response to Tanita Davis' tanks, Ode to the Pink Lady, from November 5, 2018. I chose this poem because it fits in beautifully with the digital artwork of my original picture at the apple orchard (above). 

Ode to the Pink Lady 

who needs pumpkin spice?
apples don’t – no camouflage
is necessary
even caramel* apples
are no match for fresh and crisp

Autumn's Morsels

seasonal delight

the succulence of apples

oven-fresh surprise

caramel, chocolate chips

tasty, little bites of fall

©CV, 2021 

🍃🍎🍂

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

As I begin this season, I pause in thanks as I notice that autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature." (Friedrich Nietzsche) For the soul-filling days ahead, I feel the peace of autumn days and excited to explore new regions in Virginia with my little granddaughters and family. May autumn soothe your soul! Here is a peek at autumn around the globe. Nature photos are from Terje Akke in Estonia and Jackie Yun in Hawaii. 

🍃🍎🍂

Thank you to my friend, poet Laura Purdie Salas for hosting Poetry Friday this month. She has been busy with her new move, writing a new book, and penning tankas for this month's Poetry Princess challenge.