Molly Hogan captured this funny photo on a recent outing into the marsh in Maine. I love how she captured the reflection as well. These shorebirds are called yellowlegs for the obvious reason that they have yellow legs, but I think watching them skitter along the shore would bring a smile to anyone’s face.
Let this photo be your muse this morning as we get closer to slower, beach-filled days of summer. I welcome the extra time, but not the heat. Our temperatures in the south are already inching up to 90 degrees. Leave a small poem in the comments.
I’m back to my daily elfchen practice. A reminder of the form: eleven words, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1. The first word introduces the topic, the second tells what it does, the third where it is, and the fourth how it makes you feel (I go for a metaphor in this line), ending with a word of transformation from the first word.
Yellowlegs toothpick race across sandy marsh. No one wins a prize– Solidarity.
This week is state testing week, so I did not pull my gifted students out from their regular classrooms. I’m on stand-by to help if needed. But I do get to see my youngest ones. William, first grade, was only recently placed in gifted services. His gifted brain is so full of ideas that he can barely settle on one thing. I asked him to work with me on a haiku about a rainbow. We talked about how a haiku form captures a single moment in time, usually about nature, and has 3 lines, short, long, short. We played around with word order and placement of his ideas. Then he came out with the word “surprise.” Ah yes, that’s it!
Reflex (relects) in the warter (water). a rainbow comes out of clouds. surprise in the sky
William’s first haiku, 1st grade
Carson in 2nd grade has been working with me all year long. He’s more independent in his writing, but still needs reassurance. I showed him a video from Mystery Science about how the rain becomes a prism to refract the white light into a colorful rainbow.
Rainbows are still a mystery to me even though I have this knowledge. When I see an actual rainbow in the sky, I often take a picture. My husband knows to stop for rainbows. If you are drawn to them, to Molly’s amazing photo, and want to add your writing to the collection, go back to this post on Wednesday.
Sunlight prism in the water makes rainbows arch of colors
Carson, 2nd grade
While I was checking my Fanschool post, I realized that even though Adelyn was not coming to class, she checked on our weekly “This Photo Wants to be a Poem” post and wrote. She is crazy about all things mythological. Can you tell?
The great color arc, stretching above us. As water vapor shimmers bright in shining light, Iris glows.
Adelyn, 5th grade
After a skipped day on Thursday (no worries, just busy life), Karin introduces a new character.
Welcome to Wednesday This Photo Wants to Be a Poem Day. While you are here, take a moment to be in/ with the featured photograph. When you feel moved to write, write a small poem inspired by the photo. Leave some or all of your creation in a comment. Respond to other writers with positive feedback.
Today’s photo was taken by Molly Hogan. She is a teacher-poet-photographer friend in Maine. When I first saw and saved this photo, I hadn’t seen the full reflection in the water. I’m not sure where this photo was located, but I want to be there today. Don’t you?
God encircles us rainbow stretched over water glows endless hope
For Poem in Your Pocket Day, I invited Marcie Flinchum Atkins to join my students by Zoom. We were able to get a small 30 minute window of time while she could visit. What a treat!
Marcie is a master at haiku, and no wonder, she writes one every day. She usually writes in a small notebook to photos that she has taken. Beautiful photos!
Her easy-going way led to a comfortable, safe environment for writing. My students wrote. I wrote. Like Marcie, I wanted to use a photo and Canva to design my haiku for publication. Maybe one day I’ll send them out on postcards.
At one of my schools, we are rejuvenating the butterfly garden. The purple salvia has come back after winter and is thick and covered with blossoms. We’ve been spending recess time there among these flowers, tilling and planting new feeding plants. Avalyn, my garden partner, wrote a haiku and asked me to put it on Canva like mine.
The Kidlit Progressive Poem is with Catherine Flynn today. Check on our little immigrant hero.
Visits with my mother are hard on me. I don’t live near enough to get used to her Alzheimer’s silence, the confused look in her eyes. I keep thinking one of these days I will accept this. But it seems so unfair. She was such a vibrant and thoughtful person. She is safe and happy and generally in good health, so I convince myself I should feel gratitude. Despair and grief take over. I can’t even look at this photo without tears welling up.
At Ethical ELA, we were prompted by Katrina to write about a photograph. I chose the one above.
We see a child delighted to hug his great grandmother generations of love passed on with a kiss on top of his head.
We don’t see the grief seeping into the moment the loss of a mother whose memories fleet past through empty eyes always questioning.
Spider Lily among cypress knees on Bayou Teche, Louisiana
I wanted this swamp lily to be a star lily, but research is telling me it’s a variety of spider lily. On Ethical ELA, the prompt by Wendy Everard asks us to explore the place of a favorite poet. I chose Mary Oliver and a striking line from her poem Fall: “what is spring all that tender/ green stuff”
I’m not sure what heaven is but amazement like spring when all green that was hiding in tender seed fills green bridal bouquets blossoming beautiful stuff.
Margaret Simon, draft
I’m also writing a word poem each day. Today’s word is vernal which means of, in, or appropriate to spring. Today’s form is an acrostic.
Variety of colors eagerly popping- resurrection- nature’s recital. April, I Love you.
Inspired by Molly Hogan’s post, “Diary of a Maine Spring,” I am finishing the Slice of Life March Challenge with a diary of a sunset paddle on the Bayou Teche. I’ve lived almost twenty years on this bayou named “Teche” (tesh) for the Native American word for snake. Not so named because there are snakes (there are), but because of its winding shape.
With our busy lives, work, school, activities, dancing, grandchildren, we don’t paddle our backyard as often as we “should”. Saturday offered us a window of time and a perfect weather day, low 70’s and clear skies.
My husband steers the canoe. I sit in the front and paddle most of the time. He allows me, encourages me rather, to stop and take photos. He even pulled the boat closer to the shore to take a photo of the white spider lily which is blooming now. I’m glad you can’t smell the huge dead garfish that was also on the bank caught up in cypress knees.
I nurtured my inner peace (One Little Word ’24) for a few hours of the evening. I let go of all and let God show me Creation at its most beautiful. An Easter vigil, of sorts. A perfect end of a perfect spring day. A sure sign of resurrection and life.
I was inspired by Michelle Kogan who wrote a pantoum for a hippo. I recalled the hippos of my Africa tour in 2016. I’ve been reading Margarita Engle’s verse novel Singing with Elephants. I collected lines from the verse and went to work on the pantoum form. This form is like a puzzle. Michelle fit hers together with rhyme. I didn’t use rhyme. When I googled pantoum, there doesn’t seem to be a rule about rhyme or line length. The rules show that each stanza is four lines with this pattern: (1,2,3,4) (2,5,4,6) (5,7,6,8) (7,3,8,1)
The Poetry Sisters respond to a challenge on the last Friday of the month. This month they are writing animal pantoums. Our host Tricia has more about the form and links to other Poetry Sisters posts.
The beauty of an elephant’s hum-hug, a language as common as buzzing bees, simple as spending time with kindness. Elephants embrace us with their music.
With a language as common as buzzing bees, I can catch good luck as it passes. Simple as spending time with kindness, these animals move like magical mountains.
I catch good luck as it passes: Photo from Africa is a touchstone of memory. These animals move like magical mountains with a touch of heavy gentleness.
My photo from Africa is a touchstone of memory, as simple as spending time with kindness– A touch of heavy gentleness– the beauty of an elephant’s hum-hug.
Margaret Simon, with thanks to Margarita Engle and PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA.
Amanda Potts on Instagram is @persistenceandpedagogy. She’s become quite the photographer on her daily walks in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She posted this one last week of an open pod of milkweed seeds. I am waiting for my milkweed to sprout, but I’m worried that the freeze killed it.
Amanda’s photo stirred an emotion in me. Look for the light. These seeds seem to be glowing from the center. They have places to go, places to land, places to nurture our most precious monarch caterpillars.
Write a small poem inspired by this photo and leave it in the comments. Please encourage other writers with your responses.
Parachute on wind gentle flight for precious gems whirl to wake the world.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
I love it when I read something someone else writes and begin to contemplate the same thing in my own life. Do we walk parallel lines? Kim Douillard lives on the west coast. I live on the southern Gulf coast. She wrote, “The experience of taking the same photo over and over echoes what it means to be a teacher. Each day is filled with sameness.”
March 13, 2024
When I read her blog post, I was sitting on my back deck on the same day we shut down schools 4 years ago, listening to the same birdsong, the same train whistle, and watching the same sun slowly disappear. I took a picture of the same view I had then and still have today, but I am different. We all are. We drew a line in the sand of before and after. Who would have predicted that day (March 13, 2020) the trials we would experience? The illness that would take so many lives and send us into a tailspin of doubt and despair.
But in many ways, I remember that time fondly. My oldest daughter called me while I was sitting on the deck avoiding people to tell me she was pregnant. She didn’t know then if the baby would survive. It was the early scary days of new pregnancy. And now we have an adorable, smart, and hilarious 3 year old.
I spent that spring writing poetry, making what I could out of the strangeness of the world. Today I looked back into my media file and found two other pictures of this place in my world. Same but different.
Our students still grapple with the change of things. The educational system hasn’t figured out how to move forward. Have any of us?
Buddhist wisdom says that change is the only constant. My view comforts me. To see this old cypress sprout its bright green needles year by year holds hope. Nature shows us that things can change and be alive and well again. We can’t always see the movement, but it’s there, letting us know that God is here.
March 22, 2022
March 24, 2020
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” –Buddha
Thoughts climb out on a branch spilling a seed droplet Budding
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She teaches gifted elementary students, writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 