Health experts tell us our bodies are not meant to sit still all day long. (As if we needed someone to tell us that.) Watching children on the playground as I walk across the school yard to teach my poets in the schools classes, I am always struck by their aliveness and casual grace.

Wondering how to bring that enthusiasm and joy in movement into language, I offer my fifth grades the subject of sports as a topic for poems.  In six brief lines Cole conveys the calm pleasure of swimming outside. Eliana celebrates the exhiliration of running and the slow grace of walking.

What metaphors does movement offer? How is swimming like dreaming or walking like writing? Henry Plumb reads the book of nature as he hikes. Christine writes “Ice skating is reciting a beautiful violin piece.”  Sebastian writes “Soccer is like fast cars on the highway.” 

I swim

In fields of water

I feel free

The water soothes my body

I can hear the birds as I float

The water is like the sky, clear and blue.

Cole Whitmore

Ice skating is a graceful dance on 

a silver plate of ice.

Ice skating is an icy step to success,

you’re frozen, in a good way.

Ice skating is learning to balance

on a piece of cold glass. Sometimes

you fall, don’t worry, 

get up and try again.

Ice skating is a winter wonderland

full of wonder and snow.

Ice skating is reciting 

a beautiful violin piece, you 

try your hardest, make a small mistake,

yet they applaud loudly.

But ice skating is really your

joy on ice.

Christine Mitroff 

I am the one who scores

I am the one that kicks

I am the one who dribbles and passes

I am the one who defends the ball

Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose

Sometimes my coach yells at me to do something

Soccer is like fast cars on the highway

Sebastian Bowes  

I run,

dirt flies up in my wake,

I run,

faster, faster, a cheetah, pursuing its prey.

I run,

I am fast and I am free,

I run.

Walking, slowly, gracefully,

The tortoise always wins the race.

Walking, slowly, gracefully,

Tick-tock, tick-tock, hurry, hurry, faster

Walking, slowly, gracefully,

The world goes by around me.

Walking, slowly, gracefully,

The world tells me one thing. I tell myself another.

Walking, slowly, gracefully.

Cars zoom, I walk,

Walking, slowly, gracefully,

I stop and smell the roses.

Eliana Mann 

Dance can be flowing, like a river

Dance can be jumping high, reaching for the stars,

Dance can be dancing out your problems, a dance 

of anger and sadness

Dance can be kneeling, embracing the earth.

Dance can be a story, telling of past times

Dance can be sad, mourning the deceased.

Dance can end, as does this poem.

Anna Green 

To hike is to read through

novels fresh and green.  To hike

is to retrace the steps of

the author. To hike is to explore

new letters just printed.

To hike is to uncover fresh

pages unknown, to hike is to 

experience pure joy that was

waiting for someone to experience it.

            Henry Plumb 

Basketball is exactly like life. 

When you dribble the ball up and down,

it reminds me of the upsides and the downsides

in life.

When I get fouled, it reminds me

that not everything is perfect.

When my team scores, it is exactly

like the excitement I Have in life on holidays

and times with true friends and family.

When my coach talks, it is like 

when I am determined to do something.

When I fall down,
I have to get right back up.

And when I look for a team mate who

is open to pass to, I look through

the brightest window.

And almost every action in life is 

like life.

Emma Workman