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Archive for October, 2026

Slice of Life: National Day on Writing #WhyIWrite

Posted in nature, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , , , on October 20, 2026| 10 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

Today is the National Day on Writing sponsored by NCTE and the National Writing Project as part of Write Out. I wrote a quick tricube-image poem. Why do you write?

Photo is Devil’s Pond sunrise in City Park, New Iberia, LA.

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Poetry Friday: Write Out

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on October 16, 2026| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities.

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

Gulf fritillary chrysalis on a pot of marigolds

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Slice of Life: Mishka Finds Us

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged on October 13, 2026| 12 Comments »

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.

Grandson Thomas with baby Mishka

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Poetry Friday: Harvest

Posted in nature, Photography, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on October 9, 2026| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jama at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

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.

Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday Roundup: Inklings Challenge

Posted in nature, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on October 1, 2026| 14 Comments »

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.”

For Thursday’s Spiritual Journey post, I wrote beside James Crews.

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!Click here to enter

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Spiritual Thursday: Trust

Posted in Gratitude, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 1, 2026| 7 Comments »

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.

Margaret Simon, draft

I love these whimsical owls created by Stephanie Paterson.

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