This week was a sad one for my friend, poet-author Laura Shovan. Her beagle Rudy had a condition known as bloat. Bloat is a serious condition that few dogs survive. To learn more, please click this link to AKC information on bloat. If you own a dog, you need to know the warning signs.
Rudy fought but lost the fight. Laura posted multiple pictures of her beloved pet on social media. I was especially taken with this photo. A dreamy quality that reminds me that our pets know more than we think they know.
Laura and Rudy view the sky.
Leave a poem in the comments. I hope our poems will comfort Laura in some small way. Leave encouraging comments for other writers.
If we could see through the eyes of a dog, we’d know the secret to unconditional love.
This month, Molly Hogan challenged the Sunday Night Swaggers to write a poem from a favorite line. The prompt can be found here. The idea is to find a line from a book or poem and use the line as your title. Write the poem, then change the title.
I recently had a pleasant email exchange with a friend. She sent me this Rumi poem, The Guest House. I took the line “This human being is a guest house.”
Mothers are on my mind lately as my oldest daughter gave birth to her second child, a daughter, on Monday, Nov. 30th. I was able to be there with her. There is nothing as wonderful and miraculous as childbirth. The baby, Stella Ross, did not cry. She was plump and pink and fine, but she didn’t cry. Amazing! She has since cried, but only when she’s uncomfortable, and she settles back down easily. She is truly an angel from heaven.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
Maggie and Stella, love at first sight.
Mother is Home
Mothers welcome a child’s tears with embrace.
Joy lives here, too, unexpected grace of forgiveness.
She carries your furniture, dusts it with lemon-scented Pledge, scrubs the mud from the floor you tread.
You do not have to be grateful. You don’t have to say, “I love you.” You don’t have to say anything.
She will hold your hand, kiss the scratch, place the band-aid on.
On my daily walks, I try to be alert to changes in nature. This photo is of a mushroom that randomly popped up in a field of grass. The next day the head was completely gone. I suppose some creature of the night dined out on a mushroom meal. Looks like it was working on it before I took this picture. Tap into your imagination today. Write a small poem that captures something unique.
Mushroom by Margaret Simon, 2020
Fairies fancy a canopy draping, safe place to dance ’til the ‘coons come for dinner.
Margaret Simon, draft
Leave your small poem in the comments. Please write encouraging comments to other writers.
This week’s invitation to “Share our Stories” is writing from a definition. I chose my One Little Word embrace.
Embrace: to clasp in arms: hug. The very thing taken away from us this strange pandemic year. The value of a simple hug has grown. Nothing is taken for granted.
Embrace: encircle, welcome. While I do not welcome an insidious virus, I do welcome the quiet reflection that comes with alone time.
Embrace: acceptance. This one has proven hardest of all. I am easily angered by the rising numbers. I have a hard time accepting screens over face to face. I also miss my children, and that is hard to accept.
Embrace implies gathering of separate things within a whole. Last month after careful planning and quarantine, we had an intimate family wedding in which we gathered another family into our whole. It was a beautiful wedding for my youngest daughter. Not the one she wanted, but the one we embraced.
Embracing this year has proven more challenging than ever. I still love the word. Etymology of the word comes from en+brace meaning a pair of arms. The blessings of my life abound. I hold within my figurative arms a healthy family that continues to grow. Soon I will embrace another grandchild. Soon we all will embrace a vaccine. Soon our country will embrace a new leader. We have much to embrace. May we all embrace Love!
It’s not every day that I am commissioned to write a poem. Well, actually, it’s never happened. The secretary at our school has a grand nephew, her godchild, going off to the Navy this month. She asked me to write a poem for him.
I really wasn’t sure how to get started. I don’t know this boy, but I do know his family cares deeply for him. I was inspired by Jane Hirshfield’s poem For What Binds Us.
And see how the flesh grows back across a wound, with a great vehemence, more strong than the simple, untested surface before.
“I have no news to tell you, for the days are all the same, I have no ideas, except to think that a field of wheat or a cypress is well worth the trouble of looking at close up, and so on.” – Vincent van Gogh
Red Berries after the Rain by Margaret Simon
Waiting for the rain to stop to take my daily walk, I looked out the kitchen window and saw these berries, made redder by the low light and wetness. I’ve been trying out photography lately with a camera I’ve had stored away. I wrote a Slice about it on Tuesday.
Here is an invitation to write a small poem, one of noticing something new or something old in new light. Write a small poem in the comments and take a moment to read other poems. Leave encouraging comments. I hope you are all enjoying a peaceful Thanksgiving. It may look different this year, but it is still a time to give thanks. And my thanks go out to all of you who stop by my little corner of the world.
Within the walls of rainy days, some things still sing Praise. Listen harder.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
I’ve always enjoyed good photography. The summer of my 15th birthday, my family took a cross country trip from Mississippi to Wyoming. And when we got to Denver, we looked in the phone book (no Google) for a reputable camera store. I remember being amazed that we found one. I got my very first “good” camera, an Olympus OM 10 SLR. That school year I started taking pictures for the yearbook and eventually became the yearbook editor for my senior year.
Once I moved on to college, then marriage, then babies, I left that part of me behind. Like the poet I once was, she hibernated for a long time. The poet emerged around 1995, but the photographer is still in hibernation. I got a “good” camera for Christmas 2015 before a big trip to Africa the summer of 2016: Sony 6000.
I took gorgeous pictures in Africa that summer, but everything else paled in comparison, so I put the camera away for the next big trip. I thought of taking it out in the spring to learn more about using it. It was on my list of possible pandemic projects. For whatever reason, and I think these things cannot truly be explained, I’ve finally taken the camera out again.
Da, da, tada! I present to you a gallery of amateur photographs. I admit I have a beautiful setting to photograph, so why not? Maybe I’ll keep it out this time.
Great Blue Heron on Bayou Teche, Margaret Simon, November 2020Fall on Bayou Teche, Margaret Simon 2020Red flower morning, Margaret Simon 2020
Earlier this week, Sarah Donovan once again invited teacher-writers to join an Open Write. One of her brilliant inspirations came from this poem by Joseph Bruchac. I am so grateful for my daughters, the oldest of whom will soon deliver a daughter of her own. I am pleased with how the simple form worked to express the connection I feel.
Expectant
When I place my fingers on the swell of her womb,
like combing waves in an ocean softly lapping to shore,
her skin gently moves
as our time ebbs & flows mother to daughter to daughter together in our own sea.
Every morning I walk through a field in my neighborhood to cross to another street. I watch the seasons change in an old Japanese magnolia tree. I’ve photographed it many times. It seems to pose for me.
Japanese Magnolia Morning by Margaret Simon
This is a time to think about gratitude. We have to look closely, closer than ever before. Pandemic on the rise can blur the lines of our lives. Take a minute to praise this flower, the morning, or whatever this photo brings forth for you.
Dewdrop tear, how do you balance when gravity pulls you down?
Margaret Simon, draft
Share your small poem in the comments. Please leave encouraging comments for other writers.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
This is the week of five days of open writing with Ethical ELA. Sarah Donovan has created a safe place for teacher-writers to “play” with poetry. One of her prompts this week asked us to consider what we give. Along with many of you, I give instruction for writing every day, but it’s not every day that I witness success. But when I do, I find Joy. This poem celebrates all teachers who wave their wands every day, whether or not there is magic inside.
Magic Bean
How a writer is made some think comes from a magic bean– it just is this writer can’t help but write & write, but I know better.
I know a writer comes from the magic wand of a teacher who told her she was.
A teacher finds magic in the light of a child’s words, rubs the lantern again & again. She knows the power of waiting, of how a seed of an idea can sprout if you give it nourishment & time.
I love most the smile of realization “Wow! I wrote that!” Pride from my wishing which, in the end, is me working magic, still unknown, still a mystery.
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 