I dropped the ball yesterday with my Inklings writing group. I had given the monthly challenge and forgot about it. Today I am trying to make up for it by combining the Ethical ELA prompt from Bryan Ripley Crandall to write about scars with the form. Shadorma poems have a syllable count of 3, 5, 3, 3, 7, 5.
Virus
weary soul invisible scars tenderly heal in time slowly becoming new skin touched by cleansing light Margaret Simon, draft
Ruth had a suggestion for this first Thursday that ties to the season of Lent: write a Psalm of Lament. I have been laid up with Covid all week. It’s not a severe case, but it’s lingering and frustrating me with headaches and a lack of energy. I got outside for a walk this morning, and that has helped my disposition greatly. On my walk, my priest (who happens to live in my neighborhood) stopped her car and asked, “Are you off of school today?”
We talked, and she advised me to lean into this quiet time. To let God work in God’s time. Of course, that is good advice, but it’s not what I wanted to hear when I just want to be over it already. I pulled out a copy of the New Zealand Prayer Book and started to read the Psalms.
From the New Zealand Prayer Book
As I read, I realized the psalmists were just regular people living their regular lives and wanting more, wishing for God to redeem them, make their suffering worthwhile. When we read these old texts, we feel ourselves in those moments of stress, worry, ill health, and mourning. It’s a universal experience, lament.
Like my cats mew waiting for my footsteps, waiting for me to greet them, so do I long for you, God.
My illness clouds my thoughts, so I reach for your presence. I cry, “Where now is my God?”
I wait in hope as a desert rose thirsts for clean water. I open my ears to hear
the roar of wind breaking branches calling through tones of a wind chime in the tree.
I am the one whose branches are broken who sings a mournful tune.
You, O God, are my strength. You save me from the destructive wind. You hand me a cup of hot tea, a spoon of honey, sweet taste of life.
Why do I mourn when I have such gifts?
Wait, you say, wait in hope. Sit in stillness for You are here with me.
Mural in process at The Southern Linen Company, New Iberia, Louisiana
I was running late for a lunch date with friends, but I had to stop. The artists, Hannah Gumbo and Terez Molitor, were hard at work painting this bright and cheerful mural. A little while later, they stopped for lunch at the same cafe. I was able to get their names and thank them for their tireless work on the mural. They both lit up. Creating this art brought them joy. And now it will bring joy to passers-by. Public art is for everyone!
Can you write a small poem inspired by this photo? Join us in the comments. After you write, be sure to stop back by to leave some comment love on other writers’ poems. Together we are creating art with words.
At Ethical ELA Verselove, Leilya inspires us to write a tricube poem. This form is 3 stanzas of 3 lines with 3 syllables each.
Mural Art
In spring, red dances with yellow light.
Buds become butterfly, bee feeders.
Painted walls fill my heart with delight. Margaret Simon, draft
but as light is to a star you can have this dandelion–
Every flower is a good flower to see.
These domes of ghost stars Astonish the grass–so much deliciousness.
Dazzle me, little sun-of-the-grass. You can still summon the summer day when you blew your wishes to the wind.
(line sources: Barbara Ras, Robert MacFarlane, Amy Tan, Jean Nordhaus, Emily Dickinson, Aimee Nezhukumatathal)
Jennifer Jowett encouraged us to gather a list of lines from other poets, authors, to create a cento poem. My process began with the books I had on my coffee table. Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris was there because I used a model poem from the book for my students today. This is a gorgeously illustrated book of acrostic poems. There is one using the word Dandelion.
I was reminded of a prompt from Georgia Heard using Barbara Ras’s poem You Can’t Have it All.
I enjoyed this creative exercise of gathering beautiful lines and adding form and my own words to create something entirely new. That’s what the creative process is.
Today is the release of my new book that doesn’t feel new to me. I’ve been writing and editing this book since 2018. Finally, you can read it, too. My co-author Phebe Hayes did all of the historical research on Emma Wakefield Paillet, the first African American woman to get a medical degree in the state of Louisiana. I wrote poems in Emma’s voice. Linda Mitchell, fellow Inkling and librarian from Virginia, wrote the educational guide. I am proud of this important work to connect to our past and forge a new future for women, for people of color, and for poetry that speaks the truth.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Spring is my favorite time of year When the sky is blue and clear. Birds are singing all around. Flowers growing from the ground.
This verse was the first poem I remember writing. I was waiting for my mother to pick me up from my piano lesson and I was twirling around the tree in Miss Joe’s front yard. Maybe I was 12?
The words echo in my head today as spring is here. A week ago the cypress trees were still brown. Today they are bursting with bright green needles.
My friend Mary, who is a master gardener, sends me a photo every other day of flowers blooming. The fields that haven’t been mown are sparkling with purple and yellow wildflowers.
Blooming orchid
When I take my morning walk, the birds fill the page on my Merlin app.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
On Fridays, I usually post a poem for my students to read and discuss. This week we looked at Billy Collins’s poem Today. This has been a favorite of mine for a long time. When I looked back on my blog, I found a poem I wrote after Today in 2011. (See the post here.) My students were shocked by this because none of them were even born at that time.
Today begins with a wonderful line for getting into a poem, “If ever there were a spring day so perfect,” As the poem continues with two lined stanzas, there is no end punctuation until the last line, “today is just that kind of day.” The whole poem is one sentence. I love how this works to make the poem sound more urgent and energized.
I invited my students to use these lines to create their own poems about a perfect day.
Spring 2025 after Billy Collins
If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so full of bird song
that it made you want to join with your own singing
and open your whole mouth to the world of nature,
a day when dew drops cool grass, and the garden roses popping
with red reflect the sun, so much light that you feel like breathing,
releasing the grief you’ve held in and cry real tears at the beauty
of it all, walk with light pink and orange rising before
you, welcoming you with open arms of rose and green and sky.
Today is that kind of day.
Margaret Simon, draft
As we head into spring, Avalyn and some other students are still dreaming about the amazing snow we had this winter. She asked if she could write about a winter day. “Of course, it’s your poem.”
If there were a winter day so perfect so cold with icy air
Could I pretend to hunt ghosts while drinking a warm cup of hot chocolate
Could I put on layers of clothes and roll in the snow
Could I sit in my warm bed watching TV and “being productive”
Could I play outside bands performing plays
Could I read a book my best days
Dreaming of presents can you imagine? Well you can because today is that day.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
If you are a blogger and would like to add a line during National Poetry Month to our Kidlit Progressive Poem, please make a comment or send me an email with a date choice and a link to your blog. Everyone is welcome to play!
The early morning school playground was covered in a sheet of fog. Avalyn and I went outside to write. This is something she often requests. There is an old oak with a picnic table in a just right spot for writing in our notebooks. I wrote about my surroundings, observations of the morning.
The fog hovers over the playground. I hear echoes of a church bell chime. Traffic moves beyond carrying the day-workers. Birds call to mates as spring slowly wakes sprouting on this weary morning.
Form can give us a container for our words. I looked up the triolet form. I labeled my paper with the number of lines and the rhyme scheme. The poem changed shape while still holding the mood.
Fog hovers on soft spring air, tip-toes as a church bell chimes. Work day traffic moves on everywhere. Fog hovers on soft spring air. Breeze tickles my face with hair. Morning wakes right on time. Fog hovers on soft spring air, tip-toes as a church bell chimes.
(Margaret Simon, draft)
I used these two drafts to discuss revision with my students at the next school in the afternoon. I suggested they go back to a poem and revise it.
Max who is a humble poet will rarely share his poems out loud, so I asked his permission to share his revision here. He wrote it on Fanschool, and you can leave comments specifically for him there.
“Insects buzzing all around,
Bugs are feeding on the ground,
For there is no need for them to hurry,
So why should they need to worry?”
March 25th, 2025: I absolutely despise the quality of this poem. REVISE!
Insects hover in the air,
Gracefully, glide without care.
Spot a flower, beautifully white.
Harvesting energy, basking in the sunlight.
Insects, bugs, air and the ground.
Moving, flying, all around.
To hurry is not a worry, for them.
Unless by something, they’re found.
Then Scurry!
I would add something else, but this is just about it. (Max, 6th grade)
How do you approach revision? Is it hard for you? I think students don’t usually like to revise. They like to write and move on to the next thing. Honestly until I read Max’s post, I thought the class didn’t think much of my little revision lesson. Modeling our own writing process with our students makes us vulnerable, but in the long run, shares how we all are in this together, writing side by side.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
A few weeks ago I attended a writing workshop with one of my mentors Darrell Bourque, former poet laureate of the state of Louisiana. He asked us to look at common language to explore in a poem form. He suggested a pantoum. I wrote one there, but there were parts that didn’t work for me, some rhymes that seemed forced. Was my heart in it? I knew what I wanted to say. Sometimes a form is the just right thing to contain all that your poem wants to say.
This workshop, Darrell’s gentle guidance, have stayed with me. Last week I copied into my Notes app a billboard catch phrase, “I triple-dog-dare you.”
Yesterday I read Fran Haley’s post, a beautiful pantoum about a rainbow. I looked up the form again and took another shot. This one satisfies me.
On Sunday I texted my neighbor to go for a walk with our doodle dogs. Her husband passed away last Sunday. I didn’t know if she would be up for it, so I was pleased when she agreed to go. Even though she thanked me profusely for reaching out, I felt it was my honor to be with her. Grief can be a weird time, and we are often not sure of the “right” thing to do to help someone through it. The dog walk was the right thing for both of us.
Dog Walk Pantoum
Split in a million heart pieces, I triple-dog-dare you to go. We walk our dogs on their leashes connecting puzzle pieces as we go.
I triple-dog-dare you to go to the place where grief hides in shadows. Connecting our puzzle pieces as we go. Comfort in our walk-talk grows.
The place where grief hides in shadows; Listen close to the sound of the wind. Comfort in our walk-talk grows. Each of us finds a good friend.
Listen close to the sound of the wind chimes, like a million heart pieces. Each of us finds a good friend. We walk our dogs on their leashes.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Maggie told me that Stella had found a crystal buried in their yard and brought it into her room.
“Ever since she’s been a little crazy.”
Stella turned four. What four year old isn’t a little bit crazy, with energy enough for whining and staying up past her bedtime?
My friends, Stephanie and Carolyn are interested in the healing power of stones. Stephanie brought me rose quartz and blue agate. “These are for Stella.” The idea is for Stella to put back the crystal she dug up, but knowing Stella as I do, these new ones will be added to a collection.
I looked up their meanings. Blue agate is said to bring calmness and emotional balance. The blue agate is the perfect size for Stella’s small hand. Over Facetime, she told me she loved the blue one.
The other is rose quartz which symbolizes everlasting love. Of course, lovely.
Carolyn said, “If I could be a stone, I’d be malachite.”
I listened and her words became a poem:
If I could be a stone, I’d be malachite: Rich, green, deep dark green, swirls of frequency from the depths of transition before I was brought forth to the earth. I’d be a strong stone.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
As the 3 year anniversary of my father’s death approaches, I’m in a different place. A space of love and acceptance, appreciation rather than deep loss. Grief takes time. It changes but never fully leaves you.
For some reason that I can’t ask him, my father had a little plastic Yoda on the shelf in his bathroom. It was obviously something he wanted to see every day. I took it home with me and it lives in my closet alongside my mother’s jewelry box. I wrote a poem about it.
“Do or do not”
Wisdom of Small Things
I’m a collector of small things: A miniature Yoda from my father’s bathroom shelf reminds me, “Do or do not. There is no try. “
Try as I might to let Dad go, I still want him here to guide me.
My father once told me I could only do what I could do. I remind myself everyday to leave my students’ problems at school.
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.
Reflections on the Teche 