Poetry | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: This is a Rainbow

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged chalkabration, rainbow, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on February 23, 2022| 39 Comments »

Welcome back to “This Photo Wants to be a Poem”. I took today’s photo on my morning walk. It was a quiet morning, but there was evidence that kids had been out playing with sidewalk chalk. Years ago I participated in a blog round-up with Betsy Hubbard of Two Writing Teachers. She called her idea “Chalkabration,” and every last Friday of the month, she encouraged teacher-bloggers to take their students outside to write chalk poems on the sidewalks. It was a favorite day for my students. I haven’t thought about it for a while, but I should definitely bring it back in the spring.

This photo qualifies as a Chalkabration. I love the simplicity of the sentence and how the child who drew it felt compelled to label the drawing. I hope you can find inspiration here, too. Write a small poem in the comments. Be sure to leave encouraging comments for other writers. Let’s have a Chalkabration!

This is a rainbow
that you can see, touch and tap
hop-scotch to the sky.
Margaret Simon, draft 2022

If you’d like to sign up for the Kidlit Progressive Poem happening in April, click here.

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Slice of Life: Release Day

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #poemsofpresence, Laura Shovan, monarchs, small moments on February 22, 2022| 11 Comments »

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

This month of February has been rich for my writing life. I’m writing at least one poem a day along with other writers in Laura Shovan’s 10th Annual February Project on Facebook. The theme this year is Time. Susan Brisson posted a prompt that began like this: “Tiny moments in time, brief exchanges with nature, split seconds of seeing something so beautiful, as fast as the flash of your camera or the time it takes for your thoughts to travel from your eyes to your brain. Have you ever had such a moment? Not a life changing moment but a mood changing moment.”

I immediately thought of releasing monarchs. I’ve been raising monarchs in my kitchen since Christmas. We’ve had a few freezes, so I collected them from my own garden as well as a school garden. I had around 20 caterpillars that successfully made 11 chrysalises. Of those 11, 8 have eclosed into beautiful butterflies. They’ve all been males. They have to be released in temperatures above 50 degrees.

One afternoon last week I released two of them onto outdoor plants. When I checked the next morning, they were still there and completely still. One was even flat on the ground. I brought them back into the enclosure in my kitchen. After warming up, they actually revived, but getting them to let go and fly took a bit of coaxing.

Release

The male monarch
emerged whole
and beautifully designed,
contrast of orange and black wings.
On the day of release
I gently placed my finger near his tiny legs.
He held me so tight my skin tingled.
We walked together.
I tried to coax him to fly,
but he clung, walking gingerly up my arm. Not ready
to let go.
Not ready
to fly.
I held him on my shoulder like a baby.
Then, as a mother knows best,
laid him down
and let him go.
He flew away.
I remember his touch.
Margaret Simon, draft

It’s time to sign up for the Kidlit Progressive Poem for National Poetry Month. The sign up post is here.

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Kidlit Progressive Poem Sign Up

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Progressive poem, Writing on February 17, 2022| 49 Comments »

You may use the graphic for your Progressive Poem Post

Poetry Friday Peeps, it’s time to sign up for the National Poetry Month Progressive Poem. If you’d like to play along, you can commit to adding a line to a child-friendly progressive poem and posting it on your own blog. Copy and paste the poem into your post and add a line. You can also copy the following schedule (once complete) onto your blog site with the above graphic.

April 1 Irene at Live Your Poem
2 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
3 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
4 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
5 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
6 Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
7 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
11 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
12 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
13 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
14 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
15 Carol Labuzzetta @ The Apples in my Orchard
16 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
17 Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken Town
18 Patricia at Reverie
19 Christie at Wondering and Wandering
20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
21 Kevin at Dog Trax
22 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
23 Leigh Anne at A Day in the Life
24 Marcie Atkins
25 Marilyn Garcia
26 JoAnn Early Macken
27 Janice at Salt City Verse
28 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
29 Karen Eastlund at Karen’s Got a Blog
30 Michelle Kogan Painting, Illustration, & Writing

Leave your date choice, name, and blog address in the comments. I will update the calendar as often as I can.

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Beach Bubble

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged #haiku, #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, beach, Kim Douillard, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on February 16, 2022| 20 Comments »

I follow teacher/writer/photographer Kim Douillard who lives in California. I envy her beach photos. Images of the beach take me away. They have the power to relax me. This photo brought me joy. One of my grandsons is particularly attracted to bubbles. If he is having a tough time, a single session of bubble time will soothe him. What is it about bubbles that is both fascinating and calming?

Bubble on the beach by Kim Douillard
on Instagram as @kd0602

You reach out to touch
knowing your touch will destroy
beauty in thin air.
Margaret Simon, haiku draft 2022

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Slice of Life: Hearts and Monarchs

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged concrete poem, heart painting, monarchs on February 15, 2022| 6 Comments »

My mind has been on hearts and monarchs. For Valentine’s Day, I gave each of my students a small canvas to create a heart-inspired art piece. We looked at Pinterest images and got inspired. They enjoyed spending time focused on design and playing with paint.

In my email inbox, the Poetry Foundation Poem-of-the-Day was a concrete poem in the shape of half of a heart. I used the idea to create a poem for Laura Shovan’s poetry challenge. It was a challenge. I managed to make the shape, but I’m not sure if I managed a cohesive poem.

I came home to find four monarchs hanging out in my butterfly enclosure. Such beautiful creatures. I am worried, though, because we are still having cold temperatures. I released two of them in the afternoon 60 degrees. Today the temps will climb to 70, so I’ll release the other two.

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Balancing Stones

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, cairn, labyrinth, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on February 9, 2022| 12 Comments »

Welcome to Wednesday again. Time to take a minute to observe, breathe, and write. This week’s photo is one I took of balancing stones I’ve placed in a front flower bed. I gathered the stones from a labyrinth at Solomon House, our church’s outreach mission. The labyrinth was not being used and there were some maintenance issues, so the board decided to dismantle it. I feel the stones still have spiritual significance, so I stacked them. The literal term is cairn.

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:4-5

What are your gifts?
How do you balance gifts
and beauty
and time?
Will you ever find peace of mind?
Look to the stones.
Together they form
one
balanced structure.
It’s possible.
Margaret Simon

Please share a snippet of a poem/ thoughts in the comments. Encourage other writers with comments.

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Slice of Life: Dancers

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Acadiana Center for the Arts, art collage, dancing, Linda Mitchell on February 8, 2022| 6 Comments »

This month I am participating in Laura Shovan’s February poetry project on Facebook. The theme this year is Time. This beautiful collage made by Linda Mitchell was our prompt on Monday. So much to write about, but I focused on the couple dancing. This weekend my husband and I were dancing to one of our favorite bands, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys at an event at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Opportunities to dance have been few during the pandemic. We were a little rusty, but so happy to be out there again. A nearby friend captured a photo of us on the dance floor.

Time in a Picture Frame
The photographer shutters the moment
mid-glide of a waltz.
You were smiling at him
in the way a person whose known someone for a long time-
familiarity mixed with joy.
In your mind’s eye, the planets spin an orbit of protection.
No matter what,
the photo
will always show joy.
You do not know when loss
will reveal something else hidden there-
a child looking on
or the tail of an astronaut’s lifeline.
Today it is enough
to smile.
(c) Margaret Simon draft

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Adventurers

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged #smallpoems, grandchildren, Janet Fagel, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on February 2, 2022| 23 Comments »

This week’s photo comes from Janet Fagel’s daughter-in-law who captured a special moment when her children, Janet’s grandchildren, were walking at Washington Crossing Park in New Jersey.

Out for a brisk walk with their wonderful mom, the kids ask: Can we be adventurers today? Her answer? Absolutely!!!
Janet Fagel

On Facebook, a friend responded “The first photo reminds me of this photo by W. Eugene Smith. It is on the last page of the book The Family of Man.”

I’m loving this line as a striking line for a poem.

We walk a
step & another into a magical world
side by side, brother to
sister we’ll always be.
We were born born
for this adventure under
a canopy of trees, your
refuge the sound of our footsteps.
Margaret Simon, draft

Please write your own small poem in the comments or on your blog. Leave encouraging comments for other writers. Most of all, have fun!

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Riches

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, Mary Lee Hahn, Poems are Teachers, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on January 26, 2022| 72 Comments »

Last Wednesday I invited Mary Lee Hahn to teach my class. She is a retired 5th grade teacher in Ohio. Her poem Riches is the first poem in Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s invaluable teacher resource Poems are Teachers. I wanted to share Mary Lee’s poem with my students and when I emailed her, she agreed to meet with my students. The marvel of technology makes author visits reasonable, practical, and possible.

Mary Lee wrote Riches about a photograph. She told us that the bird bath had frozen over with a myriad of leaves in it. Her husband removed the slab of ice and placed it in the sun, and she photograph it. The play of light in the ice attracted her eye and her poetic self.

Mary Lee talked to my students about all the things that she thought about when she wrote the poem. She included thoughts from a book she was reading as well as loving thoughts about her husband, how he sees things that she doesn’t notice.

Today, I invite you to sit with all that is in your head alongside this photo. What surfaces for you? Write a small poem in the comments or on Facebook or on your own blog (or all three!). Be sure to encourage other writers with comments.

My student Avalyn (2nd grade) came to class today and performed for me a poem she had heard on TicTok. At first I wasn’t really paying attention, but as she spoke on, I was drawn in. She memorized Brown Eyes by Nadia McGhee. The line that was in my head when I composed my poem is “Your eyes carry earthquakes that bring mountains to their knees.”

Your eyes
like the brown of a leaf in winter
glimmer in the sunlight
and smile at me
when you say,
“I love this poem!”
Margaret Simon, draft

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Slice of Life: The Slide of Life

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged being grandmother, haiku, monarch caterpillars on January 25, 2022| 15 Comments »

I try not to complain. I try to see the good in each day. Really, there is good in each day. But yesterday I got this haiku from a friend in Facebook Messenger.

It made me laugh, and I couldn’t resist playing along.

Haiku of my life at 5:00 on Monday.
My ribs are bruised
Coffee has lost its sweetness
Raindrops in my hair.
Margaret Simon

Sliding with “Tuffy”, age 60 and age 28 months.

This photo gives a clue to my injury. See that rather thick siding on the slide, just thick enough to bruise a rib on the way down. Can’t a Mamère have any fun!?

But I will not leave this post without hope. I am currently nurturing about 20 monarch caterpillars in my kitchen. Last week before a hard freeze, I got a text from Jennie who tends the garden at a local school: “There’s a bunch of monarchs at Sugarland. Do you have any desire to bring them in from cold? Thank you, Caterpillar hero!” On my way home I stopped by the school, found an open gate, and cut lots of milkweed with caterpillars feasting. I’m posting updates periodically on Instragram.