azaleas | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘azaleas’

Slice of Life Challenge ’23: Azalea Lane

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, tagged #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, azaleas, Bible response, March, spiritual journey on March 1, 2023| 12 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

Welcome to Day One of the 2023 Slice of Life Challenge. This challenge occurs every year during the month of March. Writing every day is good exercise for a writer. This challenge is sponsored by the Two Writing Teachers, a blog site for writing teachers. They post essays about the teaching of writing, but in March, it’s all about the teachers themselves who understand that being a teacher who writes strengthens the teaching of writing. We are a community of peers. Comments are welcome and encouraged. Comments are the sideline cheers for a marathon runner.

I decided for Lent this year I would read a page in the Bible and then write. I’m not committed to sharing each of these journal scribblings, but I’m starting off today with one.

I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make for you a great name.
2 Samuel 7:9

Azalea Lane

I have planted you
in the clay soil of Louisiana.
Most of the year, like Persephone,
you are perfect, leafless, waiting.
You look dormant, dead, but
on the first day of March,
you blossom
and shine
like a pink sunrise
opening,
opening,
opening,
saying to the world,
“I’m here!
I’m wonderful!
I’m beautiful!”

I welcome March, a month of transformation from winter to spring, transformation through the daily practice of shared writing. Thanks for reading.

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SOL16: #9 Wind Blown

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged azaleas, weather, wind on March 9, 2016| 8 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for March Slice of Life Challenge.

The wind picked up. The clouds became a sea of waves moving rapidly across the sky. As I drove down the country highway, my small Prius jerked in the strength of this weather. I made it to school. Then the gusts blew across the parking lot sending my hair into my freshly lipsticked lips, stuck. Bleh!

Once in the classroom, the windows didn’t rattle, but the roof rumbled like a drumroll. When Madison came in after recess, her hair was wispy around her face, escaping from her pony tail. “The wind is so wild,” she exclaimed, “We had to run in the direction of the wind, so we wouldn’t be blown away.”

A storm is coming. The train whistle echoes across the air like a far off warning. I can’t believe it, the ice cream truck is singing down the street, as if it’s a normal sunny day and children are playing in the streets.

Azaleas that just popped out pink blossoms yesterday will litter the ground by morning. The spooky moss (as some child once called it) is spookier as it wanders in the shadows of the oaks.

I want to laugh about the wind. I want to run in its wake like a child. But there’s this adult person sitting here who has seen the damage wind can do. Who knows what the weather predictions are. So I am guarded and irritable and worried.

Dolly Parton said (according to BrainyQuotes) that storms make trees take deeper roots. This tree that is me wants the storm to go away, yet I’ll put down my roots, stay strong, sway a little more, and take what comes.

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Azaleas Popping

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged azaleas, haiku on March 12, 2013| 5 Comments »

Azaleas in my front yard

Sunday night it rained all night. And I slept poorly between the gutters clanking and my storm-scared dog barking. But when I drove home from school on Monday afteroon, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, and the azaleas were bright all over town. I think this calls for a spring haiku.