The February Challenge came from Molly. She borrowed a challenge from Audrey Gidman and asked us to “Write a poem after Wendell Berry’s “Like Snow” — word for word. Here is my response:
“Like the Moon” after Wendell Berry
What if we went about our days like the moon, serenely, serenely shining wonder and hope into the world.
Be sure to visit Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone for the Poetry Friday Roundup, and to see how she met her challenge. The stop by my fellow Inklings’ blogs to read what “Like Snow” inspired them to write.
“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” Rainer Maria Rilke
Happy New Year, and welcome to the first Poetry Friday of 2026! (Find out more about Poetry Friday here.) I’m happy to be hosting everyone today and am looking forward to reading your poems. As it is also the first Friday of the month, it’s time for another Inklings challenge. This month, I proposed that we write poems after Mary Lee’s “December” poem. Here is my offering:
January
dawns like a new skein of yarn: a colorful coil of possibilities. Row after row, the yarn unfurls and kaleidoscopic patterns emerge.
Maybe not what you expected. Maybe you don’t even like it.
But then you step back, look from a different angle, and behold the surprising beauty unfolding before your eyes.
Last week I was lucky enough to attend a taping of Krista Tippett‘s podcast On Being at Symphony Space in Manhattan. Krista’s guests were Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith, two of the most acclaimed poets of our time. The evening, billed as “a conversation,” was enlightening, thought-provoking, and inspiring. I tried to take notes on my phone, but quickly realized I couldn’t keep up with the brilliance shining from the stage. Still, I managed to capture a few nuggets of wisdom, which I have tried to distill into a poem. Fortunately, at some point in the near future, we will all be able to listen to this conversation and learn all the “beautiful things” these women have to teach us.
As we move through time, year after year, new layers of meaning accumulate like pages In a manuscript– each sheet containing some small surprise or contradiction to all that came before.
Remember this: Don’t be afraid. Witness new wonders. Feel with radical compassion. Find a deeper and more resonant truth.
This month, Linda prompted the Inkings to respond to Ethical ELA’s September Open Write by Kelsey Bigelow: “What is the happiest thing you’ve ever tasted?”
I thought long and hard about this prompt. My family is full of excellent cooks, and I love bake. I know what foods I adore, which recipes of mine that people love. But the happiest? I was stumped. Then, as often happens, this memory came to be in a dream.
Pinwheels
Before she crimped the edges of her pies, Grandma ran a knife around the rim of the pie plate, trimming the extra crust.
Expertly, she rerolled the scraps, cut them into triangles. Then, like a snow flurry, soft and silent, she coated the waiting dough with cinnamon and sugar.
She scooped raisins out of a box, scattered them over each one, topped it all with a dollop of butter, and rolled the pastry into crescents, sealing all that savory goodness inside.
Soon the air was filled with a heavenly aroma, and I could hardly wait to feast on those spirals of sweetness.
The first month of school is in the books and it was a hectic one! Now that I’m back into that routine, maybe I can find a way back into a writing routine. Fingers crossed!
This month, Margaret challenged the Inklings to write a poem inspired by a photo shared by a fellow Inkling. I was lucky to receive three options from photographer extraordinaire, Molly Hogan. While all the images were intriguing, I couldn’t stop thinking about this one:
Here is my response:
In September, dried filaments of Queen Anne’s Lace curl inward like careworn hands folded in prayer.
A dragonfly, maybe a wandering glider, lands on the boll of seeds and stems to rest, reviving, reenergizing for the journey ahead.
This month, Molly challenged the Inklings to “Write a love note to something or someone or some place. Go big or go small!” She gave us several suggestions to use as mentor poems and shared that her real motivation was to “look at the world through a lens of love.”
There are so many things in this world that I love: my family, trees, birds, books, knitting. The list is long (how lucky am I?) I even considered writing about the kitchen table! (I will come back to this idea soon.) In the end, though, time ran out and I found myself searching my notebook for anything that filled the bill. This poem, written last summer, isn’t exactly a love note, but I sure did love this bike.
A New Bike
I stumble off the bus into another summer confined to our dusty driveway on my rusty red bicycle.
Suddenly, I see a shiny new bike waiting. I scream with joy, drop everything and run.
“You’re old enough to ride on the road.” Mom’s words echo as I hop onto the silver seat and pedal away.
Smooth asphalt glides beneath me. I’m a blur of sparkly green paint, blending into the kaleidoscope of summer leaves.
Streamers – a rainbow of red, yellow, blue – fly out from the handlebars like a flag, proclaiming my independence.
Margaret Simon has the Round Up today at Reflections on the Teche. After you read her love note to silence, visit my fellow Inklings to read their love notes.
How is it the first Friday of August already? I have crossed off a number of chores from my to-do list, but it seems like the list keeps growing! Fortunately, I still have the entire month to finish the most important tasks. But now it’s time for poetry.
This month, it was my turn to pose the Inkling’s monthly challenge. My brain was still de-stressing from a challenging spring at the end of June, and I was floundering a bit to come up with a worthwhile prompt. Luckily, Irene Latham, posted a “Summer Triptych” last month. I was intrigued by the form, and Irene made it look so easy (as she does with everything!). So that was the challenge: write a triptych. (Thank you, Irene.)
I toyed around with several ideas, but kept coming back to an owl (owls?) who’ve always been in the woods behind our house. This summer, though, she (they?) have moved into the front yard! My husband has been lucky enough to see her on several occasions.
I
Just before dawn, an owl’s call threads its way through the trees before tapering off into a purr.
II
Bold in the noonday sun, an owl sits, poised and serene. She seems aloof to the comings and goings around her. But make no mistake: She is keenly aware of every imperceptible rustle of grass, every whisper of leaves.
III
A creamy, tan striped feather lies under the apple tree: Owl’s calling card.
On a recent trip to Maine, my husband and I spent an afternoon at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. One of the exhibits, Re-Indigenizing Sacred Landscapes: From the Wigwam at Catawamkeag, included this graphic by Norma Randi Marshall, an indigenous artist and member of the Passamaquoddy, MHA Nation. (Sorry for the poor quality of the photo.)
For the first Round Up of July, Mary Lee challenged us to write “poems of protest for our nation’s birthday. Let’s use our voices and our art to make some noise! Feel free to write in praise of democracy and patriotism if you’re so moved, or write in frustration and befuddlement over the “leadership” in the White House and/or Congress and/or the courts and/or and/or and/or.“
I love the simple way Marshall presents the deeply complex ideas, so I decided to mine her words to create two opposing acrostics, one that offers hope, the other expressing the outrage I feel over the events of this week.
Respect: What It Isn’t
Reprehensible Evasion of a Sworn oath Putting millions in peril, Ensuring suffering, Claiming lie after lie, incapable of Telling the truth.
Respect: What It Is
Respectful relationships Ensure our ability to Sustain and Protect our precious planet Earth. It is our duty to Care for our home and each other, Treading lightly so we all can flourish.
Life throws us curve balls all the time. Some are minor upsets that we deal with and move on. Some completely upset the balance of our lives and take longer to recover from. Over the past year, two big curve balls have kept me from writing and posting regularly. Last year, after working as the literacy specialist in my school for 17 years, my assignment was changed to middle school language arts. I did my best to rise to this challenge. Then, last November, my mother fell ill and required round-the-clock care. This meant finding a nursing home, selling her house and all the headaches that went along with that. At first, it seemed like Mom was doing okay and we were prepared to settle into a new normal. Sadly, though, she took a turn for the worse and passed away in February. In addition to dealing with grief, there were now a myriad of other details to attend to, some of which are still unresolved. Through all of this, there were still lessons that were completely new to me to prepare and papers to grade. I had nothing left for poetry.
What I did make time and space for was my family, especially my grandchildren. They have buoyed me up when I needed it most. They never fail to make me smile, and they inspired this poem.
At the Creek–a nonet
Screams of joy erupt as kids plunge into a rain-swollen creek. Jumping, laughing, splashing; sprays of water cascade through the air. Everyone is drenched. Teeth chatter; campfire and s’mores await.
I’ve missed you all and am working on getting back to writing and blogging more often. Please be sure to visit Carol at The Apples In My Orchard for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
After an unexpected hiatus from writing, I’m trying to find my way back into a routine. As it’s the first Friday of the month, and the Inklings have been so supportive and kind, I decided posting today would be a good first step. I am cheating a bit, though, because the poem I’m sharing today was written in early November.
This month, Mary Lee challenged us to “Type a color into the search bar of public domain image archive and choose an image to write from.” I entered “white” and found this image, which I think matches my poem quite well:
“Full Moon with White Rabbit” Ohara Koson, ca. 1920 via Rijksmuseum
Last fall, I shared the picture book version of Ada Limón‘s magical poem, In Praise of Mystery, with gorgeous illustrations by Peter Sís with my sixth graders. We were reading A Rover’s Story, by Jasmine Warga, at the time, and I challenged them to write an ode to Mars. I wrote this poem as a model for them.
In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for the Moon (after Ada Limón)
Luna, Selene, Chandra, Moon Keeper of time, guardian of dreams You dazzle us with your charm.
We miss you each month while You’re off playing hide and seek with the sun. Your absence deepens your mystery And we wonder about your changing face.
Some nights you shine silver, Like a huge coin hanging in the sky. Other nights, your glow is as golden As a ripe apricot.
And always we wonder: is anyone there? We gaze at your surface and see Old men, rabbits, foxes, toads. We ask, what could those craters be hiding?
Tethered together. We are on this cosmic ride for eternity.
Reading to the Core 