#nature | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘#nature’

National Poetry Month Day 15: Sunrise

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Progressive poem, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #EthicalELA, #griefpoem, #nature, #poemsofpresence, #sunrise, #verselove on April 15, 2025| 8 Comments »

I am writing daily poems with Ethical ELA’s #verselove. Today’s prompt is with Brittany Saulnier.

Visiting my mother is filled with emotions for me. Bittersweet is a good word because she’s still here with us, but in many ways she is far from us. Her Alzheimer’s is advancing slowly at this point. Each visit she’s thinner and less able. Yet, she knows me and loves me and tries so hard to talk to me. This morning I will visit her before I drive back to Louisiana. Will this be the last time? Who knows?

At the hotel, I looked out at a beautiful sunrise. It reminded me of days sitting on the back porch with Mom and Dad looking at the lake behind their house. How I long for those easy days. There was always a heron that came to perch. All of these thoughts came when I read Brittany’s prompt to write about nature using 3 different colors.

Outside the hotel window in Ridgeland, MS.

Sunrise

I wake to sky color–
golden-white-lined gap
in purple-blue clouds

where sun rays sparkle
through
like angel wings.

Bittersweet grey clouds
hover high
like heaven’s shroud

reflected in heron’s stealth.

I imagine you next to me
with the news (all ghastly)
and your coffee mug steaming.

We sit in silence,
the silence of years between us
looking for the heron.

Margaret Simon, draft

The Kidlit Progressive Poem continues its ride through spring with Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link.

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

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Slice of Life: The Same, not the same

Posted in Photography, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #bayoulife, #nature, Kim Douillard on March 14, 2024| 6 Comments »

I love it when I read something someone else writes and begin to contemplate the same thing in my own life. Do we walk parallel lines? Kim Douillard lives on the west coast. I live on the southern Gulf coast. She wrote, “The experience of taking the same photo over and over echoes what it means to be a teacher. Each day is filled with sameness.”

When I read her blog post, I was sitting on my back deck on the same day we shut down schools 4 years ago, listening to the same birdsong, the same train whistle, and watching the same sun slowly disappear. I took a picture of the same view I had then and still have today, but I am different. We all are. We drew a line in the sand of before and after. Who would have predicted that day (March 13, 2020) the trials we would experience? The illness that would take so many lives and send us into a tailspin of doubt and despair.

But in many ways, I remember that time fondly. My oldest daughter called me while I was sitting on the deck avoiding people to tell me she was pregnant. She didn’t know then if the baby would survive. It was the early scary days of new pregnancy. And now we have an adorable, smart, and hilarious 3 year old.

I spent that spring writing poetry, making what I could out of the strangeness of the world. Today I looked back into my media file and found two other pictures of this place in my world. Same but different.

Our students still grapple with the change of things. The educational system hasn’t figured out how to move forward. Have any of us?

Buddhist wisdom says that change is the only constant. My view comforts me. To see this old cypress sprout its bright green needles year by year holds hope. Nature shows us that things can change and be alive and well again. We can’t always see the movement, but it’s there, letting us know that God is here.