Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
The “I am From” poem form has been a tried and true form to model with students. A few weeks ago, I pulled it out again in hopes to get my students to write for a hometown poetry contest. It didn’t really work out. But while I wrote with them, I ended up with a version that I liked.
I had to explain “pot liquor” to my students because the alarm bells went off when they heard the word liquor. Isn’t it funny how you can know something so well that you don’t even notice? Pot liquor is the distinctly southern delicacy of the broth from boiling greens. (AI says it is also “potlikker”.) My mother would mix it with corn bread and black-eyed peas and eat it with a spoon from a coffee mug. I never developed much of a taste for pot liquor, but what I wouldn’t give to smell it again.
I am From “The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being” Ram Dass
I am from a gold pearl ring on my right hand. I am from a grandmother with my name– (Margaret, meaning pearl)
I am from Dot, too, from her laughter at things funny, not funny, from her nimble fingers playing classical piano. From lazy afternoons with a Ding-Dong and a Coke.
I’m from photos by the azalea bushes full pink blossoms rising behind our blonde heads. From pot liquor with black-eyed peas and pecan pie fresh from the oven on Thanksgivings in Morton.
I open my mother’s jewelry box, a calm of pearls and golden beads slip on easily. Margaret Simon, 2025
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
The time change is hitting me like a brick on these early mornings. I don’t wake up naturally to the new rhythm. Blindly I let out the dog, feed the cats, start the coffee, turn on the dryer (Its beating of my clothes like a metronome for morning music.).
In my afternoon gifted class for about half an hour, two sisters overlap, a 2nd grader and a 6th grader. They are early morning care kids, so they are coming to school in the dark. Rather than complain, Danielle talked about the moon.
“We saw the moon, and it was orange!” she exclaimed. “It’s called the blood worm moon.”
“Yeah,” chimed in sister Adelyn. “Thursday night there will be a lunar eclipse.” Here’s a link to Adelyn’s poem about their morning viewing.
Both girls wrote a Slice of Life post on our Fanschool site about it. I don’t think I’ll set an alarm for 2:30 AM, but maybe when my alarm goes off at 5:15, I’ll pop out of bed and go see what I can of the eclipse.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Scrap metal on the bank of Bayou Teche
Is it trash or is it art? When my grandkids, my husband, and I were canoeing on Sunday, we passed this piece of metal.
“Look at that! It looks like a heart.”
“I want a photo of it.” Jeff knows what that means. He has often rerouted our canoe trips because of my directions to get a picture. I was extra pleased when, by the time we made it back to the “art”, there was a beautiful reflection of it in the bayou water.
I hope this photo inspires you to stop and see. Maybe write a small poem. If you write a poem, share it in the comments and encourage other writers with responses. Today, I wrote a 15 word poem.
If you find still water, place a piece of your heart near; reflect imperfect love. Margaret Simon, draft
If you would like to participate in the Kidlit Progressive Poem for National Poetry Month, sign up in the comments on this post.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
When I was having children, I never really considered the future and what it might mean for me to be a grandmother. I had three girls. Three daughters who grew into three amazing women. And now I am Mamére to four grands and another one on the way. My youngest daughter is pregnant with her 2nd child. She has a 2 year old, June, and this one is a boy due in July. We’ve had fun calling him “July.”
Pregnancy is not an easy time. There are so many changes happening in a woman’s body. After an earlier miscarriage, Martha was full of fear. I was confident, but I understood her fears. She invited me to the 20 week anatomy scan ultrasound. I sat in awe at the image on the screen…a perfect baby.
Here is my love letter to this new baby boy:
July
I already love all four chambers of your heart, steadily beating showing off for the camera. And those little toe nubs that I can’t wait to tickle. We could see the perfect stairs of your spine curled, floating up in the certain space of womb. I fell head over heals for your tiny nose, the deep eye sockets, the thing that tells us you are boy.
I can wait as you grow and grow, coming to us on a hot mid-July morning wailing for more time inside. It’s OK, my grandboy, I love you already. Margaret Simon, draft
On Sunday I read Maria Popover’s The Marginalian. She wrote about matrescence: “While mothering can take many forms and can be done by many different kinds of people, the process of one organism generating another from the raw materials of its own being — a process known as matrescence — is as invariable as breathing, as inevitable to life as death.”
In Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood, Lucy Jones writes of her own experience giving birth to a girl. “Time started to bend. I was carrying the future inside me. I would learn that I was also carrying the eggs, already within my baby’s womb, that could go on to partly form my potential grandchildren. My future grandchildren were in some way inside me, just as part of me spent time in the womb of my grandmother.”
I am grateful to be a grandmother, the seed from which my grandchildren sprouted. Honored by my daughters to be beside them as they do their best to be strong women who mother with wisdom and care.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
I’ve crocheted for years, so this year I decided to try to make a garment. I’ve made baby blankets, shawls, and hats, but when I saw a pattern for a baby sweater using two hexagons, I thought this will be easy enough.
We were taking a driving trip with our family to Oklahoma right after Christmas, and I wanted a project to do on the drive and while relaxing at the house. I picked out three colors from my inherited boxes of yarn from my friend Marion who died in 2020. My daughter Maggie, the mother of Stella, said of the three colors, “Stella will wear that.”
I crocheted and crocheted until I realized that it was way too big. The first hexagon would almost fit me! I had not accounted for the gauge of the yarn. I was just following the pattern.
Rather than lose the project all together, I decided to rip out the extra rows to make it fit. Then I spent a while making the other side.
Finally it was ready to block.
Two hexagon crocheted sweater blocked on the ironing board ready for steaming.
I brought it to Stella one afternoon when we were visiting. Stella has her own unique sense of fashion. Her preference is to wear leggings in one pattern and a top in another pattern. Sometimes she wears a dress as a skirt or a costume. Her favorites are skeleton, ninja mask, and Elsa nightgown.
Stella ready to go the art show (pj top, dress as skirt, and Elsa wig)
When Stella first saw the sweater, she said, “Nobody anywhere ever has worn a short sleeved sweater.”
My daughter Maggie explained to her that I had made it specially for her. She eventually came around and posed for a picture in her new sweater. Her dad sent me this picture.
Stella fashion: Hexagon sweater over Christmas pj top and Mardi Gras pants
Currently I am looking at a pattern for a summer sundress. Do I dare?
Denise Krebs is hosting first Thursday Spiritual Journey posts at Dare to Care
Each month a group of bloggers, who met through the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge, gather to write posts about our spiritual journeys. This month Denise asked us to write on the topic of wholeness.
I think I may find wholeness by looking outward to someone else to make me complete, to their words of affirmation.
Wholeness is a river where my path moves in and out. I find balance one day, then a wind knocks me over the next.
I can watch the seedling grow, but cannot see the growth in myself.
Whole means all of me– Here now, in the present moment where I am welcomed, accepted, and loved.
Broken, cracked, grieving, or angry. All of me Whole.
Resurrection fern on an old oak tree revived by rain.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Welcome to my weekly photo prompt. A few years ago, Laura Purdie Salas held a weekly prompt called 15 Words or Less. When she decided to stop posting, I took the idea and made it my own. If this is your first time here, the idea is to write a quick, small poem draft in the comments and leave encouraging comments for other writers. I also post this prompt for my students each week on Fanschool. This week we have a break, so they may or may not join in.
I love to look up at the sky. On any given day, the sky can change my mood. On the day I took this picture, the clouds were wispy cirrus clouds that mean high air pressure and cooler temperatures. They are a happy contrast to storm clouds or the grey stratus of a winter day. Even as an adult I enjoy looking for images in the clouds. I took this photo while out on carline duty, so only now do I have the time to see the shapes. Do you do this? Can you find an image in the clouds? What do you imagine?
Did you know there are many names for colors of the sky?
Sky blue colors from Pinterest
Try to use one of the color words in your poem. Today I am writing a cherita. It’s a short form of three stanzas. The first line is one line, the second: two, the third: three. Similar to haiku, a cherita captures a small moment or story.
Carline Duty
Look into the Carolina blue sky.
Find the great white heron with whispering white feathers.
Be curious about the secrets of sky gods who oversee the safety of children. Margaret Simon, draft
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
“Welcome to Breaux Bridge”
Happy Mardi Gras, y’all! Today is Fat Tuesday, celebrated with parades and food and fun, the last day before Lent arrives, and we enter a season of penance and fasting. I decided to skip the New Orleans festivities this year and enjoy a quiet Mardi Gras; however, yesterday, my daughter invited me to go with her and her two children, Leo and Stella, to an event in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
A few years ago I attended the “Courir de Mardi Gras” with my family in Eunice, Louisiana. I had some trouble with the drunken parade and abuse of chickens. This event in Breaux Bridge changed my view somewhat. It was specifically for the children, so the adults were drinking coffee and water and handing out snacks to their children. There was a chicken involved, but we were assured that the chicken was tame and would not be injured.
Traditional Courir de Mardi Gras mask made from home crafted materials.
The costumes were fabulous and fun!
Children ready for the run!
The history of the courir, which in Cajun French means run, dates back to before Louisiana became a part of the U.S., from a time when the Acadians came to Louisiana without much of anything but a promise of land. The small communities would celebrate Mardi Gras by having a chicken run. The idea was to go house to house to get all the ingredients for the gumbo. The gumbo would be shared by the community.
The Teche Center for the Arts recreated the courir specifically for children. El Capitaine, the leader, assigned the children to groups. It was a wild chase, for sure, but it was quick and usually ended with at least one child crying about being knocked in the head or not catching the chicken or, in Stella’s case, losing a shoe. We paraded house to house and shared in the tradition. This was more my style, watching the children, carrying their catches, and taking lots of photos and video.
Have you ever eaten crawfish? They are seasonal crustaceans here in South Louisiana. We measure the goodness of spring by the crawfish season. I think we’re expecting a good season this year because of all the rain. And it looks, by the catch above, that the hard freeze in January didn’t get deep down into the mud of the crawfish ponds.
On Saturday we attended our first crawfish boil. Our friend Patti has a home in Arnaudville with two ponds that produce crawfish. She told us the catch for this boil was from her neighbor’s pond. Notice all the (healthy) vegetables cooked along with the crawfish, potatoes, corn, Brussel sprout, and garlic. We spent the afternoon drinking beer, eating mud bugs and king cake, and watching all the dogs (and young boys) play in the pond.
For my poetry book for children, Bayou Song, I wrote a poem about the geometry (eating) of crawfish. The book also includes poem and drawing prompts for kids. You can do them, too.
The Geometry of Crawfish
Grab a long line antenna Avoid looking into round peppercorn peepers Hold the cylinder cavity containing fat Watch out for triangular tweezer pincers Detach the arced accordion tail Remove curvy meaty muscle Dip in a puddle-circle of spicy ketchup Eat Margaret Simon, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape
Bayou Song Illustrations by Amelia Cantrell
Write it: Make a list of geometry words, words about shapes. Choose an animal to describe using shapes. What shape is a snake? a bird’s beak? What about a cat’s nose?
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 