This week it’s snowing in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but last week the weather was mild. Cool enough to set a fire outside in the fire pit, yet warm enough to run and play without a jacket on. Our family vacation the week after Christmas was as good as it gets. I wrote about it here for Slice of Life.
Today’s photo was one I took in the late afternoon as the sun was setting over the hills beyond our mountain house. This photo captures the peaceful magic of time to do nothing much. As the weather has turned to winter storms and cold temperatures this week, I hope this photo brings a peaceful moment of warmth. Write with me. Leave your small poem in the comments and come back to respond to other writers. Happy new year of writing.
Pleasant perch on Blue Ridge Mountains
Muse in the magic of a smoking fire freeing your soul to rest on God’s roof.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Fire pit in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Let the magic find you.
I picked up that line from fellow slicer Fran Haley’s post this morning. I want to adopt it as my 2022 mantra.
Instead of piles of presents, our family took a trip to the mountains of North Carolina. We rented a home near Burnsville outside of Asheville. The house was just right with three floors, five bedrooms, and a fire pit. The only treacherous part was the drive up. As luck would have it, we arrived before dark to drive the mile long switchback trail up, up, and up. Thank heavens for confident sons-in-law drivers and 4-wheel drive. The trail became part of the adventure to the mountain house. We did make sure we were home each day before dark. And one morning the guys walked down with a wheelbarrow and patched some squishy places with branches and rocks.
Magic found us in the mountain house.
Three toddlers making fun. Men making meals. Scary barns. Fields of cows. Nightly fires under a blanket of stars. Magical Christmas!
Exchanging Christmas cards is a tradition that I choose to hold on to. There are people in my life I haven’t seen or talked to in years, decades even, yet we still exchange cards every year. It’s a lifeline. A loveline. A way to connect beyond any reason. I don’t fault anyone who opts out. It’s a time consuming commitment.
We don’t send a long letter anymore. The most I can get out is a sticker for the back with the very basic information. But I do enjoy reading the long letters that arrive. I don’t even care if it’s braggy, braggy. I have a friend whose tradition is to open all the holiday cards at once on Christmas morning. I tend to savor each one as it comes.
Art cards express a dedication of time and creativity. This year I received a beautiful collage art card from friend and fellow Inkling, Linda Mitchell. She says she “dabbles” but this card, and other work I’ve seen by her recently, are placing her into a higher artist category. She has talent, and I appreciate and admire her work.
Christmas card collage by Linda Mitchell
My father, John Gibson, is an artist who created art cards for years. In 2013, I created poems to accompany each card and collected them into a small chapbook, Illuminate. Today, I am featuring one of these cards and its poem.
The stable by John Gibson
The Pointillist
She laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.
He sits at the drawing table, taps the paper as an instrument.
Music comes forth in tones dark and light.
Rhythm from his heart to his hand beats–
syncopated in time– drumming out each dot point by point
Image emerges in focus inviting the eye
I go with him to the stable, kneel next to the cow,
smell the light scent of hay, listen to the breath of a child,
adore with Mary.
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved from Illuminate
Today I am nursing an upper respiratory virus. I am boosted and tested negative for both Covid and flu, but this cough is nagging, and the low grade fever has me curled up with hot tea watching Christmas movies. It should be much better by Christmas, let’s hope. Next week I’ll be traveling with my family, so I will take the week off from blogging. I’ll be back with a new photo on Jan. 5, 2022. Thank you for supporting this weekly photo prompt by writing, reading, and commenting. You have made my one little word “Inspire” glow with purpose and meaning.
This week I have taken a photo from Molly Hogan’s Facebook post. She is forever curious and explores with her camera. When I asked her about this photo, she told me her husband thought she was nuts leaning over a bucket of ice. In Maine, temperatures have turned to winter, and she captured the beauty and mystery of winter in this photo.
Photo by Molly Hogan
Frozen in fundamental shape this world inside rises this speck becomes seen this fundamental shape is frozen.
The whole room smells of graham crackers and icing, sweet-scented as Christmas should be, marked by twinkle lights and fingers dipped in icing or glitter glue.
Santa’s in the hallway listening to every child’s wish. Teachers are tired, overwhelmed by lists and sugary treats. Too much time spent on planning, cooking, decorating.
But there’s the child with bright eyes who opens her arms and says “I love you”.
You must open your little gingerbread house to all of it.
Margaret Simon, draft
I started my day listening to Ada Limón and The Slowdown. She talked about her grandmother’s kitchen and read the poem little tree by ee cummings. I played this episode for my students, and we wrote together. My poem above is true. I took the plunge and did gingerbread houses made out of graham crackers for the first (and most likely last) time. The success on Avalyn’s face and her insistence on telling me she loved me comforted my weary soul. She wrote a sweet story about her little gingerbread house on Fanschool here. (Spoiler alert: it includes a true story about a lizard rescue.)
Chloe wrote a poem side-by-side to ee cummings.
(after ee cummings little tree)
bright star bright little North Star you are so bright you are more like a light
who found you behind Mars and were you sad to lose hide and seek? see I will comfort you because you light up my Christmas tree.
i will hug your prickly sides and swing you gently as your mother would so don’t run away
and my father and i will lift you up and look at your shining stem we’ll skip and sing “Behold that Star”
Chloe Willis, 6th grade
This is the time of year for the Winter Poetry Swap. I exchanged with Karen Eastlund. She sent me the following poem (how cool that it’s in the shape of a Christmas tree) along with some delicious goodies and a hand sewn mini bin. Thanks, Karen.
When taking photographs, you don’t always get the one you planned. We recently took my grandchildren to a local art museum. There were dancers in the gallery advertising an upcoming performance of The Nutcracker. I wanted my grandson Leo to take a picture with them. Well, he’s 3 and he was afraid of the dancers, so he kept his distance. I took this photo anyway. Now I look at it as a potential poem prompt.
The Nutcracker is as traditional in the United States as Christmas caroling. We all know the story. We can conjure the iconic music in our heads. It’s been years since I attended a performance of the ballet, but I have fond memories of going as a child. Play a bit of the music while musing on this photo, and place a small poem 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.
He sat on the bench near the door eyeing the white hard hats on the other side of the bench. The next thing I knew, he announced, proudly wearing the hat with the strap over his forehead that he was a “fighter fighter”.
“Who are you?”
“A fighter fighter!”
“A firefighter?”
“I a fighter, fighter.”
“I a fighter fighter” Leo (3)
This weekend I accompanied my daughter and her husband as we drove with Leo (3) to the Louisiana Children’s Museum in New Orleans for his special birthday weekend. We met up with my younger two daughters, son-in-law, and cousin Thomas (2). The Children’s Museum is full of pretend play areas, water, music, grocery shopping, etc. I climbed into a huge bubble-making contraption with both boys. Leo was interested in the pulleys that hoist the bubble up while Thomas whispered, “Bubble.” Then we all squealed when it popped.
“Cold” Thomas (2)
Pretend play with toddler boys is fun. I could watch and listen all day. As they bounce from one thing to another, a cup becomes a gas can, a handle becomes a sword, and a puzzle becomes building blocks. At the end of the day, Mamère becomes a storyteller and lullaby singer, and that’s the best job in the whole world.
Today is another gratitude post. I am so grateful to be a part of a wider world of poetry for children. Pomelo Books with NCTE Excellence in Poetry Winner Janet Wong along with her always enthusiastic poetry partner Sylvia Vardell were awarded Every Child a Reader Children’s Book Award for Hop to It. My poem Zen Tree is one of the 100 poems in this book. The award was for the best book of facts. For every poem, there is a side bar with factual information. I love that the facts next to Zen Tree include how trees communicate with each other through their root system. Congratulations to Janet and Sylvia and all of us jumping for Joy!
We are continuing daily gratitude poems in my classrooms. This week at both schools, there is a “Santa Store” set up in the library. Students can buy gifts for their families. There is such joy around buying gifts for others. My students and I expressed that joy in our poems this week.
As we quickly approach Christmas, I hope you are finding much to be grateful for. I am also grateful for you, my underground root system. Your support helps me to keep standing (and writing).
On my daily walk, I pass a Japanese Magnolia tree. I’ve photographed this tree often, and written poems about it here and here. On a foggy grey morning, the dew drops glistened as I passed. I was compelled once again to photograph this tree.
Secrets of the night revealed on dew drops come morning
Margaret Simon, draft
Leave your #smallpoems #poemsofpresence in the comments. You may post on our Facebook page as well. Please leave encouraging comments for your fellow writers.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
The shopping season is here, and to be honest, shopping’s not my favorite thing to do. Or at least that’s what I usually say, but Sunday was different. I started out by picking up our Christmas cards at Walgreens. They were so easy to do. I used my phone and the Walgreens app; there was a 60% off sale, so they were also not that expensive. I left Walgreens with a spring in my step that helped motivate me for the next stop.
After buying a gift card for the name I chose on the angel tree, I found a new-to-me-boutique, right in my home town. All about You. I hit the jackpot on gifts for my Secret Santa gift exchange at school as well as a Christmas t-shirt for me and do-dads for the grands. Having saved some money at Walgreens, I splurged at this shop.
With all this shopping success (not to mention a good phone chat with my sister in the parking lot), I decided to treat myself to a pumpkin cream cold brew at Starbucks. New Iberia is barely large enough to sustain a Starbucks, but this day there was a long drive-through line. No matter. I took the time to check email and Instagram and such. When I got to the overly cheerful man at the window, he announced, “The car ahead of you paid for your drink!”
“Oh no!” I exclaimed. “Pay it forward. Now I have to do it for someone else.”
“The order for the car behind you is only $…”
I flashed my phone and in the blink of an eye, I had passed on the holiday giving cheer.
Sometimes shopping is a burden, but this day turned a chore into a gift.
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 