Finding safe online spaces for writing is invaluable to me as a poet-teacher in a small Louisiana town. During the pandemic shut down of 2020, writing kept me sane and real and present. Sarah J. Donovan, Ph.D. directs the website for teacher-writers at Ethical ELA. She is assistant professor of secondary English education at Oklahoma State University where she turned the writing we did during April 2020 into an oral history project.
With the help of colleagues, each volunteer was interviewed through a Zoom meeting and our contributed poems have been curated into a collection entitled Bridge the Distance, Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance: An Oral History of COVID-19 in Poems. You can click the link to read the manuscript or order a hard copy.
I ordered a copy. No one profits from the sale of this anthology; you are paying printing costs only. I wanted to have this collection in hand to read and use with my students as mentor texts.
My contributed poems can be read here:
The Duplex of Virtual Teaching.
Eight Reasons to Take a Walk on Sunday Morning
8. Bells chime a call to worship
to empty pews echoing the song of trees.7. I’m sorry I keep taking the same path,
the same images do not grow weary of me noticing.I pick gardenias from CeCe’s side yard.
If she came out, she wouldn’t mind.6. I stop by Anne’s to view her century plant as it reaches
skyward. A century plant waits 25 years to blooming,
blooming only once in a lifetime. A lifetime
I took for granted only weeks ago.5. I can take my time.
No one will call to check on me.I’ll check the feeders:
the hummingbirds like sweet water.I’ll get to it in time.
4. I walk and walk
wondering if it will always be this way.Hollow bells pealing for no one.
No one venturing out to see anyone.
3. It may rain tomorrow. Today,
the sun shines, the birds sing,
and I don’t have to join the chorus.I’ll keep singing to myself.
2. A link was sent by email
to a video church service, one priest, one reader.The organist plays
as though the cathedral is full.Full feels scary now.
Full carries weight.
Who wants to be full?1. I close this book,
heat another cup of tea,
and find my shoes,
find my way,
fill my day,
and perhaps…Bloom!
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
Bridge the Distance, 2021
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Reflections on the Teche 
Wow! How wonderful. I popped onto twitter in a waiting-room and saw that the round-up link is up. Yay! I do love an early start.
I just ordered a copy of the anthology. It was really fun to be a part of it. So many of your words hit home from the pandemic days. I don’t want to forget those feelings. The not seeing a neighbor but picking a bloom from their yard, the empty rows of desks, the spacing. It was all so strange.
Thanks for hosing this week. I took your donated clunker and fiddled with it. I’m really not sure that it’s finished as every time I read it, I find a way to fiddle with it some more. But, I love that about a poem. It’s fun. Now, I need it not to distract me from some of the projects I promised time to this summer! Congratulations on the anthology. It’s good to see some good words come from a dark time.
Margaret, it is so delightful to see your contributions again to Bridge the Distance after more than a year. In your duplex, you modeled that full circle that ties the first and last lines together. I love the touch of the mother and child and the butterfly, and the absence of touch in the interior of your poem because of that distance we’re trying to bridge.
Your “Eight Reasons to Take a Walk on Sunday Morning” is so rich and what a great artistic primary source of living through that year. And you blooming throughout. Beautiful.
Thank you for hosting today, and for posting early before I go to bed. That was great.
Thanks for this rich post Margaret and for hosting the roundup!
Congrats on the poems in the Ethical ELA anthology–both are powerful poems, and I love your MAGIC BEAN poem and seeds you continue to plant.
I love your poem “Eight Reasons to Take a Walk on Sunday Morning” it gives us such a sensitive glimpse into your thoughts–things have changed. And in maintaining some routine, though a bit late, I just put our hummingbird feeders out yesterday and await the sweet small birds…
This passage so captures that odd time: “4. I walk and walk
wondering if it will always be this way. / Hollow bells pealing for no one./
No one venturing out to see anyone.” That repeat of “one” in those lines reminds me of how lonely it all felt, even when I was in a house with other family members. It also seems like those bells peal for everyone, too–an understood feeling, though not stated.
My poem ended up being about Covid-time, too. I sure hope we don’t have to go back to it.
Margaret, congratulations on your poems in the Bridge the Distance anthology.
All your poems are powerful! I love the build up of tension in The Duplex of Virtual teaching and the hopeful ending. In Eight Reasons to Keep Walking I feel the universal pain in these lines “A lifetime I took for granted only weeks ago,” “I walk and walk wondering if it will always be this way,” “No one venturing out to see anyone,” and, “Full feels scary now.” I love how your last lines “find my way,
fill my day, and perhaps… Bloom!” are a beacon of light, a lighthouse in a dark, stormy sea, in a pandemic. In Magic Bean you perfectly capture the joy of teaching! I love all your comparisons especially this one “A teacher finds magic
in the light of a child’s words, rubs the lantern again & again.” Thank you for sharing your inspiration and magic.
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Margaret, someone on the news talked about the pandemic 15 months ago. It seems to have lasted a lifetime and you captured that in your last poem: same path, if she came out, Hollow bells pealing for no one, No one venturing out to see anyone. Your thoughts echo throughout your poem sharing the sadness of pandemic life. But there is hope in the last stanza of your poem. May you continue to blossom and shine your bright light to bring clarity to all. Thanks for hosting. PS: It was great rereading the poems that you wrote during the pandemic.
Of course, I want to congratulate you on your entries for the new anthology.
Thanks for hosting, Margaret, and for sharing your poems. I felt the emptiness in your poem “Eight Reasons to Take a Walk on a Sunday Morning.” Your words traveled slowly as if you were wondering and wandering. “Full feels scary now” – so true, and sometimes it still does.
‘Bloom’ indeed. You have captured the emptiness, the fear and yet the searching for small blessings of the lockdowns. Thank you for sharing – the anthology sounds wonderful. And thanks for hosting, too.
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Beautiful, Margaret! Uncertainty, lonliness, hope…all captured so well here. And very coincidental that both our posts have to do with walking along paths! Thanks for hosting.
Thanks, Margaret, for sharing this poem that captures so many shared feelings during Covid. The eerie feelings of loneliness, bells chiming in empty churches, the same still path. Beautiful… and thanks for hosting today.
Margaret, I love the unfolding of creative thought and deed in a time of immense challenge. This anthology and others like it are indeed recording history. Well done on your contribution. Your poem captures the inner reflections and slow, considered actions of that time. It also highlights the embrace of simple treasures. Thank you also for hosting.
Oh, you are so clever, Margaret. Such gentle, relatable lines in this;
the same images do not grow weary of me noticing / A lifetime
I took for granted only weeks ago / and I don’t have to join the chorus. I’ll keep singing to myself.
Thank-you for hosting us, and sharing your poem. x
Margaret, thank you for hosting and for sharing this new resource with us! I was struck by “Pride from my wishing/which, in the end,/is me working magic,/still unknown,/still a mystery.” 💕
This was so good! I love how there was sparseness and your lines while light carried weight and allowed thoughts of implications and what was left unsaid. Beautiful ending. Thank you so much for sharing! And hosting.
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[…] is invaluable to me as a poet-teacher…” so begins this weeks poetry roundup post (visit here) by margaretsmn. I’m repeating her words because they ring so […]
[…] as the case may be) Poetry Friday Peeps! Margaret has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reflections on the Teche. We’re on the same wavelength today with morning […]
Margaret, congratulations on your participation in this anthology. Like Linda, I so appreciate that your beautiful words came from a dark time. You’ve evoked so much of the pandemic mood in this poem. I especially like the same lines Kat mentioned: “A lifetime/I took for granted only weeks ago” and “I don’t have to join the chorus. /I’ll keep singing to myself.” Thanks so much for hosting this week!
Dear Margaret, so lovely to see you and your words blooming in this new anthology. Congratulations!! What beauty you give the world. xo
There are many similar poems about what we lost and missed last year, Margaret, but this one is special–because of its form, but also because it’s Sunday morning, which carries with it so many common rituals and experiences which are acknowledged and echoed in each stanza of a new, unfamiliar liturgy. Thanks for hosting!
Congratulations on the anthology! I’ll definitely order a copy. Your two contributions say so much about you as a writer: always up for a challenge, love of nature and children, ever the teacher. And your poem today…masterful the way you wove the extraordinariness of the pandemic into the ordinariness of a Sunday walk. I’m in with a morning poem as well. The walk is where the poem was born, but it didn’t make it into the poem!
There are so much in your poem that resonates. “The lifetime I took for granted only weeks ago” and the sense of time, that things can wait. Thanks for hosting, Margaret.
I just purchased the book. Thanks for hosting today.
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There are so many layers of meaning in your beautiful, “8 Reasons to Take a Walk on Sunday Morning.” I was especially drawn to the sound images – the church bell, the organ, singing to myself – these musical references accentuate some of the loneliness of the past year. I miss my choir. Thank you for hosting the Poetry Friday Round-up today.
I recently thought/said to someone, I wonder if anything will change now – healthcare? education? due to what we experienced throughout the pandemic. Writers are keepers of history. The anthology will be a reminder for us all in years to come. Thank you for hosting and sharing.
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I was particularly touched by:
It may rain tomorrow. Today,
the sun shines, the birds sing,
and I don’t have to join the chorus.
Finding what joy there is in each day ….
What a wonderful project, Margaret, and now I’m off to read your other contributions. Thanks for hosting today, too!
Oh, Margaret. I have been away for a long time, and it is so refreshing to come back to your voice and safe corner of the world. This poem gives me hope, reminding me how much beauty there still is, reminding me that “the same images do not grow weary of me noticing.” Your students have a gift in you, as do we. Much love. xo, a.
Amy, your blog is not allowing my comment, so here it is: I’m so excited to see you here at my roundup! A broken egg that makes you feel brave. You know how to make moments special with your words.
Margaret: I would love to take you up on a date to share beer and laughter… if only the geography could be more considerate… but if you find yourself in NJ, or NYC, let me know…
Yes, many walks were taken over the last 16ish months, but an amazing collection of observations and feelings on this particular one. You always have a magical way of looking at things as nobody else can, and then sharing them. Such a gift, Margaret. And congrats to all poets participating in the anthology. Mine has been ordered!