Spiritual Journey is hosted today by Ruth Hersey at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.
There is so much that is frightening and appalling about our world today. I’m sure it was that way when Jesus walked to Gethsemane, a hopeless time, a time of hatred and fear. Every year when we spend time between Palm Sunday and Easter, I am pulled into the despair.
Tonight I will sing. I am an alto voice in our small church choir. With a strong soprano by my side, I am singing a duet “By the Mark.” It’s been ringing in my ears all week.
Ruth asked us to write about service. When Jesus lowered himself to the ground to wash his disciples’ feet, he showed them and us how humbling yourselves can be a powerful expression of pure love. How can we love like Jesus did?
I fall short every day. Isn’t that the point? If I didn’t fall short, I would not need to repent or be open to change. Today I open my hands in prayer, open my hands to God’s children, and lift up my voice to make a gentle gift of love.
I am yours, Lord, even when I’m tired. If the world dips into darkness, your light precedes me and I will follow.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Marcie Flinchum Atkins, who has a new book coming out on Tuesday, When Twilight Comes.
For the last Friday of the month, the Poetry Sisters offer a challenge. I wanted to give it a try. The form is Ovillejo, a Spanish form described here.
In Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Substack this week, he posted a poem from Rainer Maria Rilke that began with the line “God speaks to each of us as he makes us.” I love this idea of God, intimate and personal. To get started on the Ovillejo, I borrowed this line. As I worked with the syllable count and rhyme, it changed somewhat.
Belonging
After Rainer Maria Rilke
God speaks fondly to each of us, makes each of us.
Birds respond to God’s call with song— You belong.
Set the paddle deep into water, my daughter.
Stop messing with what doesn’t matter. Sit with God and speak in silence. God knows your peculiar cadence.
Like each of us, you belong, my daughter.
Margaret Simon, draft
Twilight on Lake Lanier, Georgia
Our host, Marcie, asked us to post a favorite picture and poem of twilight to celebrate her new book. When I searched my blog history for a twilight poem, I found last year’s Kidlit Progressive Poem.
April Runs Over
Open an April window let sunlight paint the air stippling every dogwood dappling daffodils with flair
Race to the garden where woodpeckers drum as hummingbirds thrum in the blossoming Sweetgum
Sing as you set up the easels dabble in the paints echo the colors of lilac and phlox commune without constraints
Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end remember long-ago springs
Bask in a royal spring meadow romp like a golden-doodle pup! startle the sleeping grasshoppers delight in each flowering shrub…
Drinking in orange-blossom twilight relax to the rhythm of stars dotting sky as a passing Whip-poor-will gulps bugs We follow a moonlit path that calls us
Grab your dripping brushes! Our celestial canvas awaits There we swirl, red, white, and blue Behold what magic our montage creates!
Such marvelous palettes the earth bestows When rain greens our hopes, watch them grow, watch them grow!
Yesterday I walked into The Pie Bar carrying my new baby, What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou. I was hoping to meet with the owner to ask him to place it in the gift shop. When I came in, there was Tammy from church having a glass of wine on the leather sofa.
Tammy said, “I want to get your book for my new grandbaby.” So the book I had in my hand went to her new baby, Joy.
“To Joy—Listen close!” I drew a little bird emoji, and handed my new baby to Tammy.
I went back out to my car. (Have books, will travel). This time I grabbed two just in case.
I was meeting my friend and fellow picture book writer Mary Beth for a critique session. Mary Beth doesn’t have grandchildren yet, but she works with young kids as an OT.
“Of course I want one,” said Mary Beth. “We have to support each other, and besides, it’s precious.”
I also caught the owner, and he said he would stock it in the gift shop. “I always want to support local authors.”
This baby has taken a while to come to life. Now that he’s here, I am pleased to pass him around for others to enjoy.
Signing books at our local independent bookstore, Books Along the Teche.
If you are interested in participating in the Kidlit Progressive Poem in April, please pop over to this post and comment. April is coming soon.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Linda Baie at Teacher Dance.
Inspiration for writing a poem can come from anywhere. I have learned to pay attention to the signs and thank the universe when words become poems. This week I read Eleanor Wilner’s poem “Of a Sun She can Remember”. This poem is a renga poem in which she took the last line of another poem to become her title.
I used the last line of Wilner’s poem, along with other ideas, lines, words from my daily reading to create a poem.
The Golden Net of Meaning in the Light after Eleanor Wilner
When a missile misses its mark, children die. When channels are closed, prices rise. Choose your trouble. Turn your blinded eyes toward the sun. Pace the meadow filled with butterweed. Give your heart-swift to the clouds hovering. We are all connected as the golden cross-hatched web tethered between rose bushes. What I need to say— After the rain, birds sing a glorious chorus.
Margaret Simon, drafted
Pádraig Ó Tuama
If you would like to participate in the Kidlit Progressive Poem in April, please go to this link to sign up.
April is National Poetry Month. Each year the #kidlit poetry community writes a progressive poem. The idea originated from Irene Latham. Each day the poem travels to a different blog, and the poet adds a new line to the poem. Past poems can be seen here.
If you’d like to participate in this year’s progressive poem, please comment on this post with your date choice and blog URL link. Come back to this post to copy and paste the schedule into your blog post. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.
I did not do my own assignment. I kept putting it off with excuse after excuse. This month I posed what I thought would be a simple, easy challenge for my Inklings writing group, “Write a poem using the word becoming.”
I searched my notebook, my Google Docs, and no miracle there. I simply had not written to my own prompt. Last night I decided to take inspiration from fellow Inkling Linda Mitchell and write a haiku sonnet. (She had shared hers at our meeting last weekend.) Form does not always become a poem.
Is it cheating to use a repeating line? After playing with the title “Becoming Spring”, I wrote the title “Becoming Beautiful”. Almost daily, my youngest daughter sends new photos of my newest grandson. Yesterday she sent this one with the text, “Someone had a cute spurt today.” We all marvel at how this baby just gets more and more adorable.
“Cute spurt”
Nevertheless, here is my down-to-the-wire draft of a haiku sonnet for this cutie.
Becoming Beautiful
You are born with it in the deep blue of the sea you glisten like gems
You are born with it eventually you smile at your mother’s stare
You are born with it shine like the full blood moon a friend to the sun
You are born with it because that is who you are someone’s true love
No need to apologize Be beautiful as you are
Margaret Simon, for Sam, draft
Check out the brilliant ways Inklings responded to this prompt:
Poetry Friday is here today! Please scroll to inLinkz to post your link.
In addition to Poetry Friday, one of my favorite places to hang out is Ethical ELA during the monthly Open Write. This month we were hosted by Stacey Joy and Seana Hurd Wright.
I am sharing three poems I wrote in response to their prompts.
I Believe in Morning
reflections bayou glows heron hunts
chickadee dee-dee-dees feeder swings
doodle curls on my lap All is well
“Let us open and open without knowing how” Billy Merrell from “Moth” ( found in Dictionary for a Better World)
Like the butterfly in spring, Let your heart know the us of the universe: We open the screen door and swallowtail flies to the open skies without anyone holding on or even knowing where it was going, just how.
This week giant swallowtail butterflies hatched from their over winter chrysalises.
Susan Thomsen posted a prompt from David Lehman to use the last line of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself as a first line to a new poem. I have my grandchildren spending the night, and we read a silly scary story called The Dark Night. I went back to a New Year’s prompt from Pádraig Ó Tuama for a pantoum about the night.
The Dark Night I stop somewhere waiting for you. Footsteps clonking on wooden stairs— Womblike whoosh of your sound machine, Your shadow shape shifts in the low light.
Footsteps tender on wooden stairs. Owl “who-cooks-for-you” wakes; its shadow shape shifts in this low light. Time stands still.
Owl hoots who-cooks-for-you as I breathe your scent before you’re here. Time stands still. Will my love be good enough?
I breathe your sleeping scent. Womblike whooshes from your sound machine. Will my loving arms be enough? I stop somewhere waiting for you.
I received an advance copy of a new poetry book from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. Have you ever read a book that just feels good in your hands?
Poems for Every Season: A Year of Haiku, Sonnets, and More by Bette Westera offers a number of different poetry forms translated by David Colmer. Each page is a comforting woodcut design by Henriette Boerendans.
Poems For Every Season, publishing date Feb. 17, 2026Woodcut art by Henriette Boerendans
Each poem is a delight of language, form, imagery, and the miracles of nature.
The final poem is a sonnet for February. Just when you think it’s warm enough to go outside and sow some seeds, winter makes another appearance.
Prompted by Susan Brisson in Laura Shovan’s February Challenge to write a Cento poem, I turned each page of this book to find a poem.
Roaming the Seasons
Pale petals drift down Green buds will soon be showing on trees. Velvety bees Carving a nest Buzz by Among the yellow buttercups Clear I need sun Under a blanket of leaves Gathering growing sheltering All curled up in my cozy bed. We like it here and we stay.
Cento by Margaret Simon from Poems For Every Season by Bette Westera, translated by David Colmer.
Today is the first Friday of the month which is time for our Inklings challenge. This month Molly, our PF host today, asked us to follow a prompt to replace word for word of a Wendell Barry small poem. “Like Snow”
In South Louisiana, we don’t get much snow, but winter is a time for fog. One morning I watched the fog floating above the bayou and wrote my poem response.
Like Fog
What if I became a mist
Like the fog, softly, softly
Lifting the day.
Fog on Bayou Teche
To read how other Inklings met this challenge, click below:
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 