When I was teaching, my students and I looked forward to the National Writing Project’s Write Out. It’s a yearly event in cooperation with the National Parks. We would make special “Write Out” journals and spend more time writing outside. I miss those days, but I enjoy the luxury of a long walk through the park each morning. I enjoy having time with a cup of coffee and my notebook. I enjoy sharing coffee with a friend. Retirement is wonderful, but I miss writing in community.
Write Out leader Christina Cantrell has created a community online for us to share our writing in the NWP teacher studio. Every other day there is a prompt/ writing challenge. Kim Douillard of the San Diego Writing Project’s is posting on her blog. So I am finding a virtual community to write alongside.
Tuesday’s challenge was to write from kilo, a Hawaiian traditional practice of observation. You can see a short video here.
Kim suggested we share a Google doc of prompts. I have been reading Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s book The Wonderment. I added a prompt using her poem “For This I Walk Outside.” I love the conversational tone and accessible language of Rosemerry’s poetry. I borrowed a line from her poem as the title for mine.
Outside Everything is Teacher*
Setting into soil a golden marigold,
I noticed a white chrysalis hanging on the edge of the pot.
I spoke to it in a whisper, “Sorry to disturb your rest.”
As I gently placed the pot near a metal pumpkin,
the chrysalis moved, bent toward the edge
as if hiding, curling into protection.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chrysalis move, shape-shift, be alive.
Tomorrow I hope to witness an emerging butterfly.
Proof that magic still lives.
Margaret Simon, draft *line from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
My neighbor Svitlana is an animal whisperer. You know them. They just have a way with animals. Animals in need seem to gravitate to her. In September I saw her while I was out walking, and she told me about a neighborhood cat that had kittens in a planter box. She was feeding the momma and watching out for the four babies.
I told my husband Jeff about it and kind of asked/ told him I wanted to take in one of the kittens. We already have two cats outdoors, Fancy and Wally. We’ve sworn off having any more indoor cats. But this litter was born outside. They would be naturally outside cats.
Last Sunday I went by to meet the kittens. They were quite skittish and following the mother cat who was slowly weaning them. Svitlana was feeding the kittens a mixture of pate and dry food. Svitlana with all her skills was not able to catch any kitten for me to take home. She and the momma cat were both having trouble letting them go.
On Tuesday evening, I was outside feeding Fancy and Wally when I heard mewing coming from our shed. It was definitely a kitten mew. I called Svitlana. She came running over.
Apparently on Monday night two of the kittens had wandered. One returned, but one was missing. She had worried all night long about this baby. She came prepared with a can of cat food, salmon flavored with a high stink value.
Sure enough, little Mishka was in our shed. She found us! I exclaimed. Svitlana brought the momma cat over to see her baby while I set up our back porch with a litter box. We placed little Mishka in a crate, and she was happily purring. Mishka is the name that Svitlana was calling her. It’s a term of endearment in Russian meaning “little bear.” Svitlana is Ukrainian.
Mommy checks on baby who found her way to our shed.
Since last week was the celebration of St. Frances, I took her to church to be blessed by Madre Annie.
Madre Annie blesses Mishka.
I took her to our vet on Monday. She is 3.5 lbs and healthy, approximately 10 weeks old. She will live on the “cat-io” for another month or so before I let her out into the wild. Mishka has found a soft place to land.
On Saturday I attended Jone MacCulloch’s Poetry Pop-up Salon by Zoom. We were all familiar with each other through our poetry blogging and easily settled in to write. Something about writing in community creates magic. Everyone had a poem to share around Jone’s chosen word prompt, “harvest.”
At this time of year in New Iberia, sugarcane is being harvested and ground. Many people don’t like this season. The sugarcane trucks slow down traffic flow. The smoke from the mills and the burning of the fields aggravates allergies. And there’s the bagasse smell that makes you think you stepped in dog poop. But to me, it means fall. Cooler temperatures and sweet air.
Yesterday as the sun was going down, I was delivering food to a friend down the country roads, so I stopped to take some photos of the cane fields. I didn’t get a shot of the big dinosaur-like harvesters, and I was swatting at swarming gnats, but I loved the light of the autumn sun falling down the fields.
Sugarcane fields, New Iberia, LA
Harvest
Before humidity drops, before leaves fall, before the day lowers itself to comfort levels, sugarcane harvesters gear up— their dinosaur maws suck up spit out husks of tall grass— work once done by strong backs and torn hands of Africans, now mechanized and modern.
Soon fires will blaze in plowed rows, smoke rising like ancestral ghosts toward an autumn sky.
Sweetness comes at a cost. Harvester heaves and leaves behind a field, fallow and fertile.
The Poetry Friday Roundup is here today. Scroll down to add your links with Inlinkz.
Each first Friday of the month the Inklings write to a challenge from one of us. This month Linda Mitchell offered the challenge from a post she saw on Instagram: “‘Find a poem you like, or one you don’t like. Write the first 6 lines of the poem. Under each line write your own response. Delete the original lines, use what you have as a beginning for your poem.’ Tusiata Avia #30in30 writing prompt.”
Once I started doing this, I couldn’t stop. Recently I bought The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. What a wonderful mentor, nature writer, poet. On Substack for “This Photo Wants to be a Poem,” I wrote after “To the Unseeable Animal” my side by side version “To the Shadow Moving.”
The most satisfying thing about writing like this is you can remove the original poem because your new poem is unique to you.
To What Flies
(after To What Listens by Wendell Berry)
I see it again lonely
and alone, the image of the heron
opening his wings wide
to fly to the other side,
no mate will follow,
no nest to call home.
From WordPress Free Photo library
I subscribe to Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s daily poem. (I also highly recommend her new book Wonderment.) On Sept. 26, she sent out a poem “Sometimes When I am Stuck.”
Sometimes When I am Dwelling
When I feel as if my body is slowly shutting down, and my spirit is made of jelly, when my feelings go deep as if darkness dwells within me, that is when I awake to an inner peace, ever waiting my notice, my voice. That peace is longing as if whispering words.
Margaret Simon, draft (after Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)
Please consider visiting other Inklings posts. Link to your own Poetry Friday posts using InLinkz below.
Spiritual Thursday posts are being gathered today by Patricia Franz at Reverie.
Patricia Franz is hosting Spiritual Thursday this month. She selected the theme of Trust.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God…Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
I’ve been binge listening to Sara Bareilles’s new album “Good Grief.” Every song touches me in a deep way. I’ve also listened to a few of her interviews around the release and while she doesn’t say her trust is in God directly, she does believe in the universe, the eternity of all life. Her song “Forever” is about the sacred spirit that holds us all. Be careful, this one will make you cry.
I struggle with trusting that there is a “plan.” I really don’t believe there is some grand plan, but I do trust that our maker, creator God is beside us on this life journey. I pray. I meditate. I sing. All the while looking for signs pointing to hope. Hope is in the songs, the stories, the poetry, and always, in Love.
Andrea Gibson made a strong imprint on so many lives and continues to do so. Sara Bareilles wrote a song that includes Andrea’s words called “Love Story.”
James Crews wrote a poem for Andrea that was published by Rattle on Sept. 28, 2026 in response to her line, “We will spend our entire lives praying for what we have.”
I wrote a poem alongside a bonus poem James Crews offered on Substack. Poetry, songs, music connects us to each other in ways we cannot understand.
Praying for What I Have
Sleeping, snoozing, I awoke through darkness in the trees, wondering how I could make a day worthy of my waking, worrying about nothing. I was trying to forgive myself when out of the dawn, from beyond my window, a barred owl sent me its who-cooks-for-you call on fall fresh air, and a word fell from my snoring breath— Thanks— as the owl distilled silence into gratitude.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Moon Morning
As I walk the old neighborhood, I note the changes— the roses that Betty tended are not in bloom, the tall house sold; young children live there now, toys strewn across the lawn. Clyde would love knowing them.
Lynn stops me as I pass. ”Do you know me?” He asks. I can’t recall, but we talk anyway.
The moon hangs on to the morning, losing its full, returning to new.
Margaret Simon, draft
Please join me in writing to a photo each week on Substack.
At the end of every month, the Poetry Sisters put out a challenge for their group as well as any others who may want to give it a shot.
Today’s call came from Mary Lee Hahn. She borrowed the prompt from Colby Sharp’s collection The Creativity Project. “It was all my fault.”
There are hard things as well as joyful things when taking responsibility for a seven year old. My daughter is on a work trip, so I am responsible for getting Thomas up, fed, dressed, and to school by 7:35 sharp each morning. I wished I could have written a note to his teacher. “This is Just to say…”
Dearest First Grade Teacher,
This is just to say it’s all my fault he has no water bottle today, his hair is misaligned, his shirt untucked.
We were in a rush, you see. The dogs needed feeding, homework reading, and of course, the nerf gun reloading.
Please forgive me if he is a little off his rhythm. We did text his mom “I love you” and I pecked a kiss in carpool line.
We are both doing the best we can.
Sincerely, Mamére
Thomas trying to remember what happened in school. Om!
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
On Sunday, a gathering of three women poets in the Bayou Teche Museum drew a small, yet reasonable crowd. I knew when I planned the poetry reading that it wouldn’t be everyone’s favorite vegetable, so I was pleased that the 30 chairs were nearly all full.
After I read, I introduced Liz Burk. Liz and I met on the dance floor; her husband and mine both enjoy going out for Cajun dancing. We’ve run into each other for years and maybe because we are both poets, we had a strong connection, seeking each other out to sit together. One of the joys of retirement is having lunch with a friend. At one of our lunch dates, Liz said to me, “I’d love to read in New Iberia. I’ve never read there.”
I set it up with the curator of the Bayou Teche Museum, and we decided to invite a third poet, Ava Leavell Haymon. We both knew and loved her. Ava, who was Poet Laureate of Louisiana from 2013-2015, lives in Houston now, so we were very excited that she agreed to come.
Liz Burk, Ava Leavell Haymon, and me, Margaret Simon
Liz, who is a transplant from New York to Louisiana, writes a lot of poems about “Learning to Love Louisiana.” Her poems are real, romantic, and witty. Today I am sharing one that was published by One Art Poetry in 2025.
Shards of Light
I have lunch with a younger friend whose beard is turning to iron— in compensation, his ponytail grows longer. We talk and I wonder if he had ever desired me. I try to keep such narcissistic preoccupations tucked away from my awareness,
but they glow now in the dim light of this restaurant at noon, that murky gray of a rainy day, shards of light streaking oblique and harsh through unwashed windows, turning everything ashen and pasty.
The young waitress sashays back and forth, appears to flaunt her lithe body while I sit lumpy on the booth banquette. I’ve lost height from what used to be my waistline up— the spine undoubtedly collapsing— it feels like the table between us is at the level of my chin. I squelch the urge to ask for a booster seat.
I turn my attention back to my friend, listen as he recounts his adventures traversing the country solo in his new minivan, realize his true desire lies in his need to tell me his stories. As for my need to feel desired, I’m hoping that tiresome burden will diminish with age— will it bring mourning or relief?
Elizabeth Burk
Ava read from three of her collections. With Halloween just around the corner, she shared a poem from her book “Why the House is Made of Gingerbread” in which she embodies a character, a woman named Gretel, who takes on the fairy tale as her own childhood story.
It was selected by Lemony Snicket to be included in “Poetry Not Written for Children that Children Might Nevertheless Enjoy.”
The Witch Has Told You a Story BY AVA LEAVELL HAYMON
You are food. You are here for me to eat. Fatten up, and I will like you better.
Your brother will be first, you must wait your turn. Feed him yourself, you will learn to do it. You will take him
eggs with yellow sauce, muffins torn apart and leaking butter, fried meats late in the morning, and always sweets in a sticky parade from the kitchen.
The poetry reading was a highlight for me. Our three styles of writing are as different as three kittens in a mixed litter, but we each have a passion for the poetic form. When asked if this was the first in a series of poetry readings, I responded, “No!” There are just some things that should happen just once.
Today is the first day of Open Write at Ethical ELA. Today’s prompt was offered by Mo Daley.
Mo asks us to consider our place in the world, where we are, and who may have come before. I went to one of my favorite topics, the grandmother oak in my backyard.
I am also thinking about the upcoming Write Out from the National Writing Project in partnership with the National Parks. The theme this year is “Where We Stand”. Please consider writing outside this fall between Oct. 11-25, 2026. There are many student resources available.
Grandmother Oak
To enrich this earth, I have planted my feet in the solid arms of grandmother oak planted three hundred years ago. Chitimacha women prayed over the sapling.
I do not wish to escape her history scarred into her flesh.
Let me feel it, stroke her old skin worn and strong—single survivor.
I praise her hold of the sunrise where I rise to be blessed.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
I follow Pádraig ÓTuama and receive his weekly newsletter on Substack.
This week he wrote about monostitch poems, which are written with one line. His example was a poem by Rafiq Kathwari. There can be much said in a single line when each word is measured and carries weight.
As usual, Pádraig invited his audience to try it and share in the comments. I read through many of them, but this one stood out to me.
When the candle of your best intentions has gone out,
there will be matches in the drawer.
Deborah Cooper
Matches in the drawer
This is my response:
Introducing myself to the hospice nurse,
I hear my mother say my name for the last time.
Margaret Simon, draft
Next month I will be participating in a Walk for Alzheimer’s. Please consider a donation to the cause that is still so close to my heart.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
