what my education lacked

The Adjectives

We are the adjectives—artists, too—
We stick to the nouns
As your skin sticks to you.
I call the man great or good or sad.
I call the beast large or fierce or bad.
I paint the grass green
And the flowers gay.
We dance through the world
In our colorful way.

Madeleine brought this home from her third grade classroom. Two years ago, her class memorized a lengthy poem about the vowels and how they work with each other…