Welcome back to This Photo Wants to be a Poem, a low stress way to wake up your creativity by writing and sharing a short poem. Please leave your poem in the comments and encourage other writers by writing comments on other poems. We are not looking for brilliance here, just a playful way to be writers together.
by Molly Hogan
This photo seems to want to be a whole story. Who was here? What was he or she doing? Could it be an artist’s still life?
Buried Treasure
With shovel and ax. we poke and dig while gold lies in the search.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Jasmine tea takes me back to our honeymoon in San Francisco when I was falling in love with everything… The Japanese Tea Garden surrounded by green, blooming with wisteria, iris, and maple blossoms. We sampled green tea, all flavors; jasmine was my favorite. We walked hand in hand, called each other Mr. and Mrs., and felt the hope of a new path before us.
Now in this time of quarantine, someone said tea is good for you. Who cares if it’s a hoax. I’ve heated the water, dropped in a filtered circle of jasmine tea, squeezed lemon from our backyard lemon tree,
and sip the taste of San Francisco trying hard to remember that love is enough.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Yesterday I read Sally Donnelly’s post about choosing a color to represent this time. She quoted an artist who represented the 9/11 tragedy with the color blue. Read her post here.
I started thinking about the color I would pick, and it has to be green. This is the time of year when green appears in all its amazing shades in my backyard. The cypress trees are bursting with a bright neon green.
Looking up through the cypress trees
Live oak trees lose their leaves in the spring as new leaves emerge.
Grandmother Live Oak bursting with spring growth
I am passing my stay-at-home time on my back deck, listening to wind chimes and watching for the occasional boat. And sometimes a poem comes. Using Irene Latham’s prompt from Laura Shovan’s #Waterpoemproject, I wrote this quick ditty.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Our governor of Louisiana has made a bold, smart move to Shelter-in-Place, except for essential personnel, so I am wondering about my essentials.
Green smoothie to start the day with a side of Cafe Latte.
Sweep oak pollen. The live oak trees are in full bloom. The pollen falls in little wisps and gets stuck on shoes, dog fur, and such, so it must be swept every day.
Yoga with Susan. My lovely yoga instructor held a free Zoom class this morning. I love her class, and I feel so much better afterwards. We all sang an Om to each other today.
Staying in touch with loved ones. FaceTime and videos and pictures from daughters. FaceTime with my parents who are safely settled in a retirement home. Zoom meeting with my writing group.
Text says, “Safe distancing with a 6 month old.”
Humor. Pre-COVID19 quarantine, my husband and I would go dancing. One of our dear dancing friends has an extremely talented granddaughter who made this one-woman barbershop quartet video called Quarantine. Check it out then share it. This should go viral. It’s that good!
What are your essentials? Stay safe. Stay home. Stay healthy.
Leigh Anne Eck is a dedicated Slicer who sent me (and all Slicers) an invitation to her Spring Fling, a virtual party for sharing ideas for self-care. At the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge, we are all teachers. We are all in this weird space of Coronavirus quarantine, fumbling around with how to continue to be who we are without face to face connection with our students. A virtual party is just what we need.
Amaryllis blooming in a circle median
My Three Self-Care Practices:
Daily Walks with Spring Flowers: The weather has been perfect for a daily walk. Flowers are blooming and fragrant, wisteria, amaryllis, fruit trees, and sweet olive.
Wisteria blooming on an electric pole
2. Yoga: Did you know that Down Dog app is free to teachers until July 1? I downloaded it and did a 15 minute practice. I plan to make this a part of my daily routine. (If I can get Fancy kitty off my mat)
“What? You wanted to exercise?”
3. Facetime with my Grandbabies: Getting daily texts with pictures and video as well as FaceTime with my two grandboys is a joy that nurtures me. As every day changes our directives for sheltering, I touch base with my daughters. The boys continue to grow and do new things. Thomas, 6 months, is eating solid food. Leo at 15 months is learning a new word each day.
Facetime with Thomas
Thanks for coming to the party. You can add your post to Leigh Anne’s post here. How are you practicing self-care?
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
You’ve heard of a stray dog or stray cat, but have you ever seen a stray chicken? My daughter’s dog was chasing a chicken in their yard. They live in a city, not in the country. They’d never seen this chicken before.
A text: My son-in-law Grant caught the chicken.
Ironically, they are keeping the chicken in an outdoor barbecue house giving it water and food, veggies and a breakfast bar. My daughter asked me if I wanted to keep it. My husband said we have enough dependents at the moment, but I can’t help but think of my character Sunshine in the second Blessen book.
Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:
Chapter One: Missing Egg
In the quiet of the morning, before the sun rises, before the barges move down the bayou, even before the school bus rumbles down True Friend Road, I find a miracle waiting for me in the chicken coop. My best friend is a chicken named Sunshine. And she lays the most precious light blue eggs. Every day.
But not today.
I gather Sunshine from her nest by placing my cupped hands under her fluffy breast. I cackle to her in her own language. She says, “bwack!” and fluffs up her feathers.
“Stop that cursin’, Sunny-girl. Act like a lady. Here you go, come to me.”
Sunshine hops up and on to my shoulders. She paces from one shoulder to the next, tangling my hair up in her feathers. She trills and shifts. Tucking her under my arm, I rub her soft golden down hoping to settle her. I’ve never seen her so nervous.
When I check her roosting spot, it looks disturbed. Like someone or some thing was digging for her eggs. A little shiver runs up my spine. Come to think of it, the latch was hanging, not hooked. I’m usually careful to fully latch it at night.
I think about my chicken, Blue, that I lost to a hawk last year. Blue was my first-ever pet that I had to take total care of, and I failed. I left the gate open. She got out and must’ve looked too tempting for the hovering raptor. I wonder if a hawk could’ve stolen Sunshine’s eggs. But that doesn’t make any sense. A hawk couldn’t get into the coop. What coulda’ been scavenging around in Sunshine’s bed? Did I fail her, too? What kind of pet owner am I?
“Sunshine, did you have a visitor last night?”
I put her down outside the coop and scatter some seed. She settles into a focused peck, peck, peck, eating her breakfast.
I look over toward our neighbor’s house and see the shadow of a child moving across the screened porch. That’s weird. I thought the house was empty. The For Sale sign still stands in the front yard. I wonder who could be there. A new friend? An egg thief?
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved, from Sunshine, published by Border Press, 2019.
To order Sunshine from Amazon, click here. If you’d like to order a signed copy, let me know in the comments.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Poetry Friday round-up is Michelle Kogan. Click over to join the round up and to read poems from The Best of Today’s Little Ditty, including one of mine.
Ethical ELA posts a 5 day Poetry Challenge each month. (Next month, there will be a prompt every day for National Poetry Month.) This month I participated in only two days, but I shared one of the activities with my students this week on our Kidblog site.
Click here to see the full prompt from Jennifer Goyer-Jowett.
Her prompt included finding a Japanese character to write a haiku from. I chose river. (There isn’t one for bayou.)
Kawa
In the process of finding this character, I discovered the Japanese word Kawaakari which means the gleam of last light on a river’s surface at dusk.
Last light of first day glows like any other, yet gleam lingers longer.
Margaret Simon, draft
Knowing my student Madison would jump on this prompt (she loves all things Japanese), I posted the prompt to my class Kidblog site. I’m sharing their wonderful responses.
Ember’s graceful flight,
Sparks fly, blizzards and tornadoes
of dire fire.
Madison, 6th grade
Mizu means water
Maddox, 5th grade, wrote “The Japanese character I chose is mizu which stands for water. It represents the fluid flowing and the formless things in the world.”
fluid flowing streams
flowing in the wild forest
complete harmony
Maddox, 5th grade
A.J., 6th grade, chose tree.
Standing tall and firm,
Strong arms supporting small twigs,
Uneven Fractal.
A. J., 6th grade
Breighlynn, 4th grade wrote, “My Japanese character is Kaze. Kaze is for wind. It represents Freedom of movement.”
See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
With an open schedule on Monday, I decided to try to make my own instructional video from my book Bayou Song. I recorded it on my back deck with the Bayou Teche in the background. It wasn’t terrible, so I posted it. (I need to figure out where to look.)
My students are set up on Kidblogs, so I posted the video there and had a few poetic responses. With so many students out of school, I hope more will join in and write poems. Feel free to share.
I see kind-loving warm-snuggling happy-smiling PERSON
by Karson
Best-soccer-defending, Award-winning, Newspaper-mentioning, me-being. Not-caring, free-going, not-quite-all-knowing, random-fact-blurting. Book-writing, comic-drawing, manga-reading, creativity-and-craft-showing. This is me, even if you dislike it, then that’s you- and I’ll tell you what. That’s that.
See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life
In the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine, there are some beautiful moments. My daughters had come into town for the weekend. Directives from CDC advised that my mother-in-law, who is elderly and immune compromised, should not be in closed quarters with anyone, so we all met at City Park for a Sunday morning stroll.
The ducks were busy in the pond. Lots of fluffy yellow ducklings to watch.
The weather was sunny and warm, close to 80 degrees. The shade was gloriously pleasant.
Baby Thomas, 6 months, took a little snooze in the sun. Then we sat under a grove of oak trees where Thomas learned about grass and leaves, his first experience with nature.
Nature consoles us. Walking with family is something we rarely do. I hope you are finding ways to spend more time outside.
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 