Language Arts Teacher Mary Melroy Kinkead Offers Favorites for National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month was launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996. For the rest of April, each day we are sharing a poem: your favorite poem--one of your own or one by a published author.

Send your poem to janeEstahl@comcast.net with a sentence or two about yourself as the author or why the poem is among your favorites. And stay tuned for announcements of local poetry readings in the area that you may wish to attend to celebrate the integral role poets play in our culture.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
~Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower.
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay

Untitled
~rudy Francisco

She asks me to kill the spider.
Instead, I get the most
peaceful weapon I can find.

I take a cup & a napkin,
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time, just being alive
and not bothering anyone.

I hope I am greeted
with the same kind
of mercy.

~rudy francisco

Mary Melroy Kinkead, spent her career as a Language Arts teacher, lacrosse and competitive cheer coach. Now retired, she reads, travels, attends sports events and spends time with her beloved granddaughters. Sharing literature with her students—connecting the classics to contemporary life, exploring the beauty and depth of poetry as it reaches the minds and hearts in unique ways--has always been her joy and her mission. She offers Robert Frost’s “Noting Gold Can Stay” as a favorite--one she shared as part of the eulogy she wrote for her father's funeral--along with a “call” for compassion for all living beings by rudy francisco.

More News from Boyertown

• Phil Repko Adds "Ankh" to Repertoire for National Poetry Month Phile Repko, educator and poet, continues his annual effort, along with his two sons during National Poetry Month, to create a poem each day.
• Black-Throated Blue Warbler: Bird of the Month The black-throated blue warbler is an attractive sign of spring common in the Boyertown area during its breeding season.