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Posts Tagged ‘#poemsofpresence’

I wrote about finding beauty yesterday for Slice of Life and Spiritual Journey. Along with the post, I wrote a haiku based on the scientific name for Goldenrod. I enjoy writing with word play. For the haiku, I embedded the name into the words of the poem. The form is similar to taking a word for a walk posted on Ethical ELA here by Anna J. Small Roseboro. She suggested taking an abstract word and writing it as the first word in the first line, second word in the next line, and so on until the word becomes the last word in the line. Six lines of six words each.

Of course, as always, you are welcome to enter this prompt in any way that works for you. Please leave a small poem in the comments and encourage other writers with your responses.

Solidago*

Meadow soul soother
I turn toward your day light
Don’t go. Don’t go.

Margaret Simon

*scientific name for goldenrod, solidus meaning “to make whole”

This is the poem I wrote for the word walk prompt:

Sympathy begins with sad eye contact.
Then sympathy reads your sad thoughts.
I express sympathy for your loss.
You may scorn sympathy as insincere.
But I see you, sympathy, walking
along the worn road of sympathy.

Margaret Simon, draft

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“Joy is an act of resistance.” –Toi Derricotte

What is bringing you joy? In her newsletter The Good Stuff, Maggie Smith wrote about finding beauty. She called it a “beauty emergency.” An abundance of beauty is available to us everyday if we choose to notice. Even on my sickest days this summer, I could look out my window to find the great white egret who daily feeds across the bayou. Even now I can see a flash of white as he flies by. Sometimes I watch him slowly wade through the water. Something about that presence of purity renews me.

Renewal happens even if we forget to ask for it. God knows how to renew all life.

“To find a new world, maybe you have to have lost one. Maybe you have to be lost. The dance of renewal, the dance that made world, was always danced here at the edge of things, on the brink, on the foggy coast.”

― Ursula K Le Guin

I am still in the process of renewal, walking a fine line between dark and light. I have to find the strength each day to see the light, to look for it, all the while knowing darkness is close by. Illness does that to a person. The fear of it all coming back again is real. I notice the fear, name it for what it truly is, then let it go. I must do this to bring joy to the forefront. And renewal comes as I find beauty in ordinary days.

Full moon peeking out from the clouds

A colleague complained to me about an incessant vine that climbs her brick walls. “The guy has to come every 3 months to deal with it, even in this drought.” We can complain about the onslaught of weeds in the yard, or we can take pictures of them and find their beauty, their life, the way they insist on being here.

Weed in the grass insists on being noticed!

I believe that God gives us access to beauty all the time. We are meant to feel curious, to wonder about ordinary things, to be present and renewed, touched by beauty and joy.

Goldenrod, photo by Margaret Simon

Solidago*

Meadow soul soother
I turn toward your day light
Don’t go. Don’t go.

Margaret Simon

*scientific name for goldenrod, solidus meaning “to make whole”

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In her weekly newsletter, Maggie Smith asked the question, “What can a poem do?” Her conclusion is a poem can remind us of us, of who we are as humanity. We need poems now as much as ever. When times are hard, look to the sky and see poetry.

Last weekend while my husband was driving us home one evening, we saw the sky light up at sunset with this amazing cloud formation that disappeared into the night within minutes. I rolled down the window to take the picture. I saw an octopus. What do you see?

Octopus sky by Margaret Simon

Oh, octopus, octopus of the sky,
what do you see as you pass by?
A world of creatures down below
Chasing time and on the go.

Oh octopus, octopus of the sky,
what wisdom lies in your eyes?
I stop to watch your tendril glow,
breathe in deep, heart beats slow.

Margaret Simon, draft

Take a minute to breathe and see what you may see. Use your imagination to tell a story with a poem. Respond to others who are writing vulnerably today. Encourage with your comments.

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Wildflowers at Niagara Falls, Oct. 2023

For Fall break, my husband and I visited Niagara Falls. This trip was a bucket list item for me. The Falls did not disappoint. They are an amazing feat of nature, the kind that cannot be captured in a photo or video. You have to be there to hear the sounds of hundreds of thousands of gallons of water falling each second. I took a lot of pictures, but when I look at them now, they pale in comparison to the real live event. I’m so happy we did this trip. I highly recommend it. If you are planning to go, let me know. I have suggestions.

This morning’s Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets was by Emily Lee Luan The warble of melting snow is the river. I borrowed her form for my own poem. I find that using a form helps me get out of my head and allowing creativity to do its magic.

The chant of rocks is the falls (after Emily Lee Luan)

is the rush of gravity
is the impulse of water*
is the pull of a mother… child
is the everlasting light of the sun
is the building of power
is the electricity of ages
is the reflection of rainbows
is the promise of peace
is the waking of a dream
is the shift of river
to fall.

Margaret Simon, draft

When you are inspired to write, please leave your poem in the comments so we can share. Write encouraging comments for other writers.

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Mossy Sunrise by Margaret Simon

Most mornings I take a walk in my neighborhood. As the days get shorter, I am usually headed home by the time the sun begins to rise. The neighbor’s oak tree drapes over the street and I was drawn to the mossy tendrils hanging. It’s getting close to Halloween, so spooky is on the brain. But maybe this image isn’t spooky at all. Maybe it’s comforting, a sign of almost home, a signature of southern oaks.

My students and I have been writing short poems, haiku and six-word stories, the first two days of Write Out. What I’ve realized and shared with them is that short forms mean every word has to count. On the Write Out poetry page, I found a video by Rich Novack about found poetry. He suggests using nonfiction text from National Park trails to collect words for poetry. For my poem, I googled Spanish Moss and collected a list of words to use in a haiku.

Mother nature braids
her harmless silver ghost–
Sunrise silken shade

Margaret Simon, draft

Consider joining me and my students in writing outside today, observing nature. Perhaps you will find a text to build a poem from. Have fun! Leave your poems in the comments. Encourage other writers with your comments.

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photo by Margaret Simon

Fall here in South Louisiana doesn’t offer much color change of the trees. The oaks stay green. The cypress turn brown. Crepe myrtles are still blooming. I found this yellow beauty near a sweet-gum tree. I picked it up and pressed it into my notebook.

I invite you to think about fall with all your senses.

One of my favorite forms is the zeno created by J. Patrick Lewis. Based on a mathematical sequence, the syllable count is 8,4,2,1,4,2,1,4,2,1 with all the single syllable lines rhyming. I usually decide on the one syllable rhyming words and write the poem around them.

As sun’s glow fades through purple clouds,
I walk alone
seeking
fall.
A yellow leaf
beneath
sprawls,
beckons to hear
barred owl’s
call.

Margaret Simon

Write your own musings in the comments and leave encouraging comments to others. With my students, today I plan to make Zeno Zines. Here’s a video of me sharing a Zine.

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Moonflower in the butterfly garden, by Margaret Simon

In May, my student Avalyn took on a project to create a butterfly garden at her school. When I returned to school this week, she couldn’t wait to show me how the garden was doing. It was full of flowers. The largest was this moon flower. My friend Mary had donated a small plant in the spring and now it is huge! Yesterday we found a fat green caterpillar on it and researched. The caterpillar is a tobacco hornworm and will become a moth. We also found gulf fritillary caterpillars on the passion vine. They’ve eaten it all. I have a passion vine in my own butterfly garden that hasn’t been touched. I will bring some cuttings to help these little prickly cats along. Raising butterflies is a Joy!

Today write your own poem in any form about the moon, this flower, garden pests, butterflies, etc.

Tobacco Hornworm Nonet

Moon
flower
night bloomer
bright white fragrance
among the children
feeds tobacco hornworm.
Watch how he chomps on the leaves;
Aggressive eater, camouflaged
soon will burrow to emerge as moth.

Margaret Simon, draft

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Rose has the round-up at Imagine the Possibilities

This week I have felt nearer to normal. I’ve been thinking about teaching and preparing lessons for my return on Monday. I’m pushing away concerns that I have no control over. Yesterday I invited a neighbor, a retired teacher, to cut and paste magazine words onto Jenga blocks, an idea that originated with Paul Hanks and used by Kim Johnson. (See this post.)

I get a lot of poems in my inbox. Some days it’s too overwhelming to read them all. Some days I find inspiration in a line or a form or an idea. This week I found a first line from Ching-In Chen’s poem Breath for Metal.

Breath for Flesh

This a story
I’ve kept
inside my
soft
body. I’ve discovered

breath dissolves
fever–practiced pulling
in, hold, hold,
hold–
sigh.

I am being gentle with her,
speaking softly
through tears
like a light rain in fall.

Release
is real.

Margaret Simon, draft
Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com

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Poetry Friday is hosted today by Ramona at Pleasures from the Page.

Today is the first day of September and it comes with a full Blue Moon and slightly cooler temperatures pointing the way to fall. Ah, me! I breathe in deeply and sigh.

August has been a dark month for me, and I am just beginning to emerge from the cocoon of illness. When I asked the Inklings to study and use the tool of enjambment in a poem, I had no idea how my whole life would be enjambed. My hysterectomy in June had the worst possible complication, an opened and infected incision. I had a second surgery on Friday, August 18th. I was in the hospital for 5 days and in bed at home for 10 days following. As I begin to feel better and the cloud is lifting, I am cautiously optimistic that I am healing.

For the enjambment challenge, I offered my friends a model poem from former Louisiana poet laureate Jack Bedell.

Ghost Forest
        —Manchac, after Frank Relle’s photograph, “Alhambra”

1.

Backlit by city and refinery’s glow
these cypress bones shimmer

on the still lake’s surface.
It’s easy to see a storm’s

coming with the sky rolling
gray overhead and the water

glass-calm. Even easier to know
these trees have weathered

some rough winds, their branches
here and there, pointing this

a-way and that at what
we’ve done to this place.

Read the rest here.

Jack Bedell

One early morning this week, I sat outside (at the urging of a close friend) and watched the bayou. This small draft of a poem came to me. I offer it here because it’s the only thing I have and doing this makes me feel normal again. Thanks to all of you who have expressed concern and sent cards and messages.

Is it
the play of light
on the surface
or air bubbles moving
over glass-calm

water I watch
still, quiet bayou
breathe, like me,
slow and deliberate
taking in life-
giving oxygen.

We are trying to survive,
bayou and I,
trying to make this day
meaningful
all the while knowing
breath is all
that matters.

Margaret Simon, draft
Bayou Teche Sunset, by Margaret Simon

To see how other Inklings used enjambment, check out their posts.

Heidi Mordhorst @ My Juicy Little Universe
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core
Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

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I hope this post finds you happy and healthy and enjoying the last dog days of summer. My friend, fellow teacher-poet Molly Hogan has been getting outside and taking amazing photos in nature. I borrowed this photo from her Facebook page. She identified the flower as phlox. The water droplets transform this image into something new entirely. I’ve been watching a great white egret appear on the bayou each day, so my haiku turns the image to the egret. Use your imagination and write a small poem in the comments. Be sure to read others and encourage with your responses.

Phlox with water droplets by Molly Hogan.

White wings drape water,
bloom droplets of crystal grace
Egret makes no waves

Margaret Simon, draft

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