Our Host: Stacey Joy
Stacey Joy is a National Board Certified Teacher, Google Certified Educator, and 2013 L.A. County Teacher of the Year. Stacey has taught elementary school for 40 years in Los Angeles Unified School District, and she is imagining life in retirement at the end of this school year. Stacey is a UCLA Writing Project fellow and a dedicated writer here with the phenomenal teacher-poets of Ethical ELA. Stacey has poems published in various anthologies: Out of Anonymity, Savant Poetry Anthologies, Teacher Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance, and Rhythm and Rhyme: Poems for Student Athletes, and more. Stacey enjoys traveling, spending time at the beach, and capturing pictures in nature while taking mindful walks.
Inspiration
On April 16, 1862, enslaved people in Washington, D.C. were freed through the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a day now remembered as Emancipation Day (Washington, D.C.). Imagine what it might have felt like for people who had lived in bondage to step into freedom.
Some may have stayed. Others may have traveled to new cities or states. Many began new lives with uncertain paths but hopeful visions of liberty. What might those new “landscapes” of life have felt like?
Poets often write about moments of transformation when life begins again.
Process
Write a poem about beginning again. Your poem might explore a new landscape, a new identity, or a new way of seeing the world.
Imagine beginning again as or within one of the following:
- a landscape
- a classroom
- a marriage or relationship
- a mindset
- freedom itself
- a spirit
- an object
Write from that perspective. Consider what has changed, what remains, and what hope or uncertainty might look like.
You might choose to write an etheree like I did, or perhaps you prefer no form at all. What matters most is to write what your heart desires.
Stacey’s Poem
My prompt was inspired by a journaling exercise about “beginning again” from The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad.
Welcome Home to Begin Again
When
Ghana
Welcomes us
In November
We hope to behold
Every joy we’ve pictured
Rich cultural histories
Bustling streets of Accra await
Stories, rhythms, and spirits commune
Begin again with the Motherland’s love
©Stacey L. Joy, 3/1/26
Your Turn
Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers.
Verselove Day 16: Beginning Again
Act I:
Narrator: Reproduction Roll Call:
Uterus–Present
Fallopian Tube A–Here.
Ovary A–Here.
Fallopian Tube B–Over here.
Ovary B–Me too!
Cervix–Down low!
Fundus–Up top!
Endometrial Cancer–All Present and Account For!
Uterus: Wait. What?
Fallopian Tube A: Endometrial Cancer?!?
Ovary A: Girl. What is you doing here?
Cervix: Every time a cancer shows up, everyone is guilty by association.
Fundus: Now we all have to go. <insert eyeroll here>
Appendix: I ain’t even did nothing…can’t stand Cancer…always out of control.
Act II:
After surgery,
She will begin again.
Emptied of organs tainted by cancer.
Will there be phantom orgasms? A mirage of contractions? Delusions of menstruation?
Will green grass grow like it does after the earth is scorched?
Tracei Willis April 17, 2026
Tracei,
I am sorry I am just now coming back to see what I missed on the 16th day. If this poem is about you, please let me know how you are doing. I will say that this poem speaks truth. Praying all is well, if not now, then all is well soon.
Love the light-hearted humor in a tough situation:
Surgery is set for April 22nd, I’m hopeful.
Tracei,
I’m so glad I came back to find your poem and your note to Stacey. I’ll be thinking about you this week. Sending thoughts for a smooth recovery.
I love your clever roll call and two act structure. And your humor.
Your organs sound just like girls in a locker room.
Here’s to Act II and beginning again and laughing through hard times.
Sending love.
Thanks, Sharon.
Stacy, thanks for this prompt and for the suggestion to write an etheree, as I struggled to cobble together some moments to write today. One of the happy reasons for that is because our about-to-be-a-teenager son asked me and his mom to sit and read the end of the book that he’s reading with him! No TV, no devices, just us sitting around reading, I’m homing that this is the beginning of something that we do together more often.
Beginning a new family tradition?
Can
we read
together
tonight? my son
asked, startling us,
so we passed the book
like warm bread at the table
nourishing our souls, listening,
singing the story, sharing space, full,
at the end, quiet in thought, together.
Goosebumps, Dave! I love this and hope it becomes “a new family tradition.” What a fabulous line/simile: “we passed the book / like warm bread at the table / nourishing our souls.” So cool!
Yes to a new tradition, Dave! I love it that you “passed the book / like warm bread at the table” – such a beautiful way to share reading. My children established a similar tradition. You are going further with “singing the story.” We sometimes perform the stories, but then their parents are not too happy because we laugh too much and falling asleep isn’t on the horizon ))
Oh, Dave, what a delightful experience for your almost teen son. Perfect evening “like warm bread at the table / nourishing our souls” It reminds me of communion. And “singing the story” is gorgeous. I love how the theme of beginning again brought you hoping for a new beginning of this kind of reading. I hope so too!
Dave,
I’m drawn to the closing moment, “quiet in thought, together.” It holds a kind of fullness that doesn’t need words, a gentle settling into connection. Something lasting begins here, shaped by small, intentional acts of being with one another.
Sarah
Dave,
Treasure that special moment. I can’t imagine how hard it is these days to get kids to sit and read together. And I don’t only fault kids, parents are on devices just as much.
Thank you for sharing!
Pain—
It’s not
Something that
I allow when
You’re an acquaintance,
Or someone who’s not close.
If I let you in my heart—
Into places I care about—
There’s a big chance that you might hurt me.
Will I ever let you get close again?
Julie, places I care about intrigue me, almost as if we can control those places.
Julie, so true. Those we don’t know and love deeply can’t really hurt us too much. That last question is haunting.
Julie,
I feel the guarded tenderness in “If I let you in my heart,” that careful awareness of what it costs to care deeply. The movement from distance to vulnerability unfolds so clearly, especially in “There’s a big chance that you might hurt me.” A kind of honesty lives here that doesn’t try to soften the risk, but names it plainly.
Sarah
Julie,
So true for most of us. We let them in and WHAM, we are hurt. Protect your boundaries. 🥰
Thanks Stacey…for beginnings and for the etheree.
Spring
begins
by painting
the neighborhood
in a coat of green
so vibrant you can smell
chlorophyll seeping through pores
renewing and greening this place
with leaves unfurling, bright buds bursting
spreading life, spreading joy, new beginnings
What a welcome for Spring!
I can visualize the leaves unfurling. So fresh!
Kim, “painting the neighborhood in a coat of green” is a great image! And I love your last line!
Kim, this is a smell of spring: “a coat of green
so vibrant you can smell.” It’s my favorite season because of new beginnings. Love your etheree!
Oh, Kim, what language you have used to make us see that greening of spring. This is amazing:
Kim,
The image of “chlorophyll seeping through pores” feels especially vivid, almost as if the whole neighborhood is breathing again. A sense of renewal moves through each line, unfolding gently into “leaves unfurling, bright buds bursting,” where growth feels both delicate and unstoppable.
Sarah
The beauties of Spring come alive in your etheree! 🌺🪴
Stacey — Thank you for your prompt.Hope you have a wonderful trip. I got a little off track today.
It was
A small orange-skinned man
sparring with a holy man.
Sounds like a joke —
but no.
It was capitalism,
a war in middle east,
executive tyranny.
It was yellow- bellied congressmen,
too cowardly to stand
against a bully.
It was humanity adrift.
Can we reset–
start anew?
Mid-terms
are an eternity away.
Tammie, your poems raises concerns of the harsh reality we witness and refuse to normalize:
“It was capitalism,
a war in middle east,
executive tyranny.”
Many of us ask the similar question in hopes for a change and a new start.
Tammi, thank you for voicing this today. I was compelled to write about the spiralling of sanity that you so aptly describe–“humanity adrift” seems just right–but I had to pull myself away from that today. I ache for that reset.
Tammi, I think you were right on track! So much truth! And thinking of a “reset / start anew” is a perfect poem for the prompt today. We certainly need a new beginning.
I’m glad you got sidetracked because this is a much needed poem! “Humanity adrift” says it all.
What an inspiring prompt and poem Stacey. Ghana is home, you will enjoy every bit of her.
Here’s my etheree about my move to Hanoi in 2024, to new country, school and life.
bob
music
sway and hop
dance to the beat
op-por-tu-ni-ty
road widens, makes you nod
look ahead and hope for more
know that this is your blessed time
what lies ahead, nobody knows, so
take the chance, move and make the most of it!
Juliette,
I’m here for all the rhythms in this motivating verse: “bob, say, hop, dance,” Love the way you’ve drawn out our reading of “op-por-tu-ni-ty.”
Juliette, your entire etheree reads like “dance to the beat.” There is a celebration of “op-por-tu-ni-ty,” that opens the doors and welcomes with an embrace. Love it!
Juliette, I love your message. I felt the same way when we had a stint in France. I really like the musicality of your poem.
Juliette — love the movement of your poem and message –“take the chance, move and make the most of it!”
Juliette, I appreciate the optimism expressed in your poem.
My favorite line is the third from the end!
Juliette, there’s so much joy in this poem. Those last two line are sage advice and words to live by!
That was a big change, a true new beginning. I enjoyed seeing your move, and this poem about it–from the musical beginning to the taking a chance with the move.
Juliette,
How fun! It sounds like you were in the right place to enjoy new beginnings!
Stacey, I wish you the best trip to Ghana and hope that “Stories, rhythms, and spirits: will reunite you with Motherland. I, too, thought about my homeland today.
When the Sirens Stop
Light
returns
slowly now,
not as before,
but learning to live
with what still remains here,
with sounds of children’s laughter,
with names we carry in our hearts,
feeling lost, but choosing to find hope,
to rebuild and imagine new beginnings.
Leilya,
I’m especially moved by “names we carry in our hearts” because, for me, the line holds both grief and devotion at once. The poem doesn’t rush past loss; instead, it makes space for it, and then gently turns toward possibility. That shift into “choosing to find hope” feels earned, not forced. Maybe a choice.
Reads like a quiet act of courage, the kind that doesn’t erase what happened, but still makes room for laughter, for imagining, for beginning again. Yes, beginning again with the grief living a different way.
Peace,
Sarah
Leilya, your first four lines seems so powerful, maybe due to the sparseness of the syllables. I always love it when you write about home. Have you thought about putting together a collection of poems about home?
Thank you, Mo! I have a section of poems about home in my collection, but I may rethink and have one that is just about home–memories, present, hopes for future. Looking for a publisher too.
Leilya — Your message of hope “light returns” and strength resonates throughout your poem. These lines were especially powerful –“learning to live/with what still remains here” and “rebuild and imagine new beginnings.”
Leilya, your poem suggests that have a choice about how we view the future. We have to search for hope. Many of us find it when we write! And read the poetry of others. Thanks,
Leilya, your poem speaks to me. “but learning to live/
with what still remains here,”
There is definitely hope although challenges exist.
Leilya, your opening lines drew me completely into the drastic changes that must be encountered after a tragedy such as war and significant loss. The hope your poem offers at the end shows resilience and determination. Powerful!
Leilya,
I love that throughout so many of our poems this month, there is the presence of hope and new beginnings. Even when it’s hard, we still must keep hoping. 💙
Leilya, I keep reading this poem over and over, feeling profoundly sad and yet, smiling at the sounds of children’s laughter. There’s so much complexity woven into your lines. The choice of hope despite great loss, maybe as a debt owed to that loss, speaks of resilience and the compulsion to keep going no matter what.
Leilya, this is wonderful and hopeful with the “children’s laughter” and “imagin[ing] new beginnings” And I’m very happy to hear you are working on a collection of poems for publication.
Not an Autobiography
By Mo Daley 4-16-26
An old lady was in search of a new beginning
One, she fervently hoped, with far less sinning
Try though she might
She couldn’t do right
Her wicked ways kept the Devil grinning!
Mo, Ha-ha, “Not an Autobiography” – love the title! Your limerick is too funny–what a smart move! If the Devil is grinning, she might be wicked indeed ))
Mo,
I smiled at the playful rhythm right away, especially “the Devil grinning.” It gives the poem a little spark while holding something deeper underneath.
Then, “In search of a new beginning” carries such a familiar longing, and the poem lets that desire sit alongside human imperfection without trying to tidy it up. A sense of humor runs through each line, almost as if the speaker is winking at their own struggle.
Sarah
Mo — “Her wicked ways kept the Devil grinning!” — LOl! You keep having fun, Mo!
Mo, this kept me smiling. The whole poem could make a very enjoyable narrative.
Lol, Mo! “Not an Autobiography” Wink, wink. I love your last line, “Her wicked ways kept the Devil grinning!”
Cracking up!!! I adore you, Mo!
Mo, great limerick about new beginnings! Fun rhyming. And so glad to see it is “Not an Autobiography”
Some days the words come. Other days they don’t. I know a lot of folks right now with forced new beginnings, and it made me think about the words we use to frame situations. I couldn’t get any more than this today.
If I tell you I have
a new beginning
you tell me congratulations.
But if I tell you
I’m starting over
you wonder what error I committed
that I’m trying to rectify.
Cheri, this looks like just the right amount of words to me. It’s interesting how we frame things and how meaning is perceived by a slight adjustment in how we say what we say. I’ll admit that when I hear starting over, the implication for me is picking up pieces.
Astute observation. I love that you named this.
Cheri, you are spot on about humans reactions. It makes me think how more attentive or intentional we have to be with every word we use.
Cheri,
“You wonder what error I committed” feels especially sharp and true. It opens up a space for compassion, a reminder that beginning again does not need to be explained or justified. Sometimes it is simply an act of courage to move forward, no matter what name gets placed on it. I feel this.
Peace,
Sarah
Cheri — A lot of people are struggling right now and you capture the nuiance of words “new beginning” and “starting over” so well. I hope there is a light at the end soon for those experiencing these transitons.
Cheri, it’s tough to ignore responses, is it?
somhe don’t understand that start over could simply mean we’ve found a better, more gentle, kind, economical or efficient way to do something. Like us here on VerseLove, we’re finding we can say lots more with fewer words! Like you have here!
Cheri, The second part of your poem is actually right.
“you wonder what error I committed
that I’m trying to rectify.”
When the change is happening there seems to be that judgement or question of ‘why’.
Words have power…and nuance. You captured it perfectly!
Mic drop!! This is short, powerful, and true. I don’t think I’ve thought about how the words change the impact of this so much. DEEP!!
Stacy, you had to choose this topic on the day the biggest selling book at the Calvin Center Festival of Faith and Writing is a picture book based on a poem I drafted here on OPEN WRITE: Cindy and Sandy Learn about Elephants (2022) So, though the picture above is of zebras, I write about elephants and enslaved persons, and the fact that you plan to visit Ghana made me pull the three together, Emancipation Day and Elephants (my favorite animal for all kinds of reasons! and your planned trip back to the elephant’s ear!
Emancipation and Elephant Day
Like
Some elephants
Many enslaved came
Brought afar from Africa
Learning life abroad
Living enslaved by law
Like living enclosed in zoos
Learning to care for new broods
Many
Like elephants
Adjusted quite well
Watching our families swell
But
Without freedom
It’s hard to grow strong
And like elephants, we long
For family, but take care of all
Whom we see and need our care
We just wished we could be back home there.
Anna,
“Without freedom it’s hard to grow strong” feels like the heart of the poem. Such a clear, steady truth, and it echoes through each image of family and tending. The lines about caring for others carry so much dignity, even in the face of what has been taken. Dignity. Yes.
Peace,
Sarah
Anna, the opening comparison between elephants and people is striking to me. You skillfully connect their displacement and endurance. That first stanza sets such a powerful frame, reminding me how deeply the experiences of being taken and forced to adapt can echo across living beings. I sense aching for home and freedom, but also a tenderness in how care continues despite loss. It’s a moving and memorable metaphor. Thank you!
Anna — I agree elephants are fascinating creatures. I am amazed by their strenght and the bonds they form with their families. I saw a video once of a chain of elephants banning together to pull baby elephant out of a strong current of water. Truly remarkable creatures. Love the connections you draw in your poem to illustrate the strengh and caring of enslaved people.
Powerful poem, Anna! I love the weaving of the elephants, emancipation and enslaved people.
tree
Time plays,
a trumpet of ticks,
picking the oak,
to drop sticks.
Until the rot,
twist into a knot,
with winds pushing,
the tocks.
Fallen,
After enduring storms,
the oak lays,
where it was born.
slowly,
Into the ground
it goes,
and the trumpet
Sounds
as the saplings grow.
Omg I envy your skill with rhyme. And even though the lines are brief, each one offers a potent image. PS I know that there are loads of poems about trees, and my students really enjoyed this one : )
I love the sounds you make with words and I can’t help but read them out loud (see the t’s in stanza one and two)…and sounds as the saplings grow. Wow.
What lingers most for me is the closing movement into renewal, with “as the saplings grow.” A gentle reminder lives here that endings are not empty. Something continues, something rises, even as the old settles back into the earth. Yes.
Peace,
Sarah
Love the ticks and tocks, the trumpet, life’s cycle…and back to the sapling.
Boxer,
The sounds of nature here soothe my tired soul. Thank you for this gift. Nature thanks you too. 🌸
Hi Stacey,
Thanks for introducing me to the etheree form! I also love the idea of beginning again, but unfortunately had other topics on my mind.
While Proctoring the ACT, I Compose a Poem To Compose Myself
Days
after
another
shooting and we
bubble test booklets
as if the answer to
this American problem
is to gatekeep students’ futures
when we can’t even promise them that
they will survive the tests of the present.
—Jessica
Oh my! Such a powerful truth and I strongly believe we are testing our students to death, too! Love your title and poem!
Oh how I wish this weren’t true. I appreciate the extra depth your title gives this poem.
I, too, had to try to compose myself today with problems affecting my students and their families. I didn’t do so well. You crafted a wonderful poem. I love the duality of the “tests of the present.” I agree wholeheartedly with all of this.
Jessica,
“As if the answer to this American problem” carries a kind of clarity, naming a tension that many feel but struggle to say aloud. What stays with me most is “we can’t even promise them.” Such a simple phrase, and yet it opens into something so profound about care, responsibility, and fear. I feel that fear, I think.
Sarah
Jessica, first of all, I love your titles. They always establish just the right context for the poem. And then “we bubble the test booklets” brings me to my reactions to standardized testing – what can we learn about students’ knowledge from these bubbles. The final two lines are just a heartbreaking truth. Thank you for raising your voice!
Jessica, I love the layers of meaning with “compose” and “tests.” Thank you for crafting and sharing this with us!
Jessica, thank you for this. The title is perfect for this ongoing problem in our screwed-up society that is allowing such shooting. Thank you for speaking out with this powerful poem.
Jessica, thank you for this powerful and sad truth about our misguided priorities. You nailed it.
Stacey, thank you for hosting and offering a wonderful prompt. I hope November’s travels bless you with all the joy you deserve!
Metamorphosis
my new lover silence
rests beside me, but he
refuses to warm me, rub my ankle,
take out the trash
I’m too tired to move
watching autumn leaves
scatter, wither beneath a bleak sun—
nothing lasts forever
except strange shadows,
soft footsteps, a creaking floorboard—
I close my eyes, open my arms wide,
embrace its truth
Barb Edler
16 April 2026
Oh, so much sorrow, Barb. Grief takes time. Positioning “silence” as your new lover is powerful. And you opening your arms to embrace the truth is even more powerful. Keep writing ❤️
Barb,
Your title is perfect. The personification of silence is haunting and heartbreaking. So much to say but so hard to say it, hence “new lover” signaling a change, not so much a transition as an awareness. The inevitable reinforces with autumnal images, that archetypal metaphor. Then all we’re left with is “bleak shadows,” i.e haunting memories. That ending reminds me of Sandberg’s “The Man with the Broken Fingers.” The endings echo and feel like a conversation across time.
Barb, you have given your “silence” a place beside you even though it is very limited in what it can do to “support your physical needs” or ease your sadness. You last line, as you “embrace its truth” is powerful and I want to reach through cyberspace to give you a hug with my arms opened wide.
Barb,
I’m struck by the opening, “my new lover silence,” such an intimate and unsettling way to name absence. It immediately gives silence a body, a presence that both accompanies and withholds.
And “refuses to warm me” carries a quiet ache, and the small, everyday details like taking out the trash make that absence feel even more real.Yes, ache might be the feeling I most sense here.
Sarah
Barb, I sense the quiet and the pause in your poem, and I know the power of holding presence during a time of illness/healing of a loved one is a time of deep reflection and uncertainty. I’m truly glad you are writing and sharing your heart with courage. I take this line with me today that nothing lasts forever – not the good times, not the bad times, not the bleak sun – – it all changes. I look forward to your poems each day.
Ah, Barb – you have captured the essence of grief in every single line. “Nothing gold can stay,” wrote Frost. Your poem strikes deeply with me as my husband deals with ongoing serious heart issues. I can’t imagine him not being here…you can’t imagine how your poem draws me in. And – I love it.
Barb, I’m really drawn to how the poem begins with “my new lover silence”– so much tension right away. It makes me think of a speaker as someone who experienced loss. The second stanza deepens that sense of grieving, especially with the line “nothing lasts forever,” which, to me, sounds as a resignation, something we don’t choose but are forced to accept. The move toward embracing silence seems to be a way of surviving, a step to metamorphosis. Really appreciate you sharing with us.
Wow, this is a keeper, Barb! The silence, the mystery, the shadows, the longing…just in awe of it all. The title!! 🔥
Stacey,
I love your joyful poem and can’t wait for all the pics you’ll share from Ghana. *hint*
Yesterday I was approached by numerous children wanting to practice their English. One five-year-old child is studying English and Chinese.
learning english
they’re young
children in year
one studying my
mother tongue.
they’re eager to
speak, engage in
conversation,
connect. they ask,
“What’s your name?”
“Where are you from?”
they hold up phones,
to point at screens.
we need no words
in our smart phone
universe. I nod, snap
a selfie, wave goodbye.
i’m grateful for
children teaching
me what learning
english for the
first time means.
Glenda Funk
April 17, 2026
Glenda, what a wonderful experience this must have been. I love how you show the eagerness of the children and how the phone is ubiquitous no matter where you roam. The end of your second stanza sings. Thanks for sharing this amazing encounter with us today and your Canva rendition is stunning. Love seeing those beautiful young faces.
I am not as brave as you are with such short lines, and the enjambments are so rich. I especially like “we need no words / in our smart phone / universe”, which reorients & delights a couple of times. You’re grateful for them — we’re grateful for this look at them & you!
Glenda, you paint a wonderful picture of these excited and hopeful learners who are eager to engage and grow through conversation. You are certainly encouraging them to learn.
Glenda,
The smiles in this picture are precious. Love it. And the curiosity of the children comes through so clearly in the poem with the questions: “What’s your name? Where are you from?” And it feels full of openness rather than distance. A sense of mutual reaching unfolds, even as language itself feels limited or shifting. The details of phones and screens add a modern layer, where communication finds new pathways beyond words. Clever commentary here; we see the utility the bridge of it. What stays with me is “children teaching me.” Such a gentle, humble reversal. Learning becomes shared, fluid, and humbling. A reminder lives in your poem that language is not only about vocabulary, but about presence, gesture, and the willingness to meet one another where we are. Oh, ans smiles. Love the smiles.
Sarah
Wow, Glenda, that’s really impressive that they are already learning English and take initiative to want to practice speaking with a native English speaker. These are the kinds of moments that only travel can bring, and it warms my heart that you are there taking selfies and waving goodbye. They will treasure those photos and talk about them for a long, long time.
Glenda, what brings joy and hope is that these children are “young” and “eager” to learn. Their openness and curiosity is contagious. I like how our smart devices make communication and memories keeping easily accessible and adore your photo collage with these children. They are the new beginnings; hope their futures are bright and peaceful.
You, my dear, are living your best life and I am grateful to witness it! The children in the image brought me more joy than my heart can hold.
Glenda, you are a great ambassador in the countries you are traveling in! Thank you for bringing love from the USA to others. The photos of these young friends you have made are just precious.
Slow and Controlled
I
ate a
book baked of
mastery. Once.
My left collarbone
cracked on the backside of
a challenge made of dirt. Once.
I’ll re-heat the baked mastery
once more, three times a year, to stay strong.
Victory is mine once I’m back on track.
You sold me with “I / at a / book,” and am intrigued by cracking collarbones and challenges made of dirt. Love the wording.
I am definitely having fun finding metaphors in my writing lately. I had “I / read a / book” but thought…I didn’t just read it, it became a part of me, nourished my mental health, but then left me and somewhat has wasted away. I will need to eat it again and again, just like I do my food to stay healthy.
Amber, I’m not sure I’m comprehending everything about your poem, but it reminds me of the tortoise and the hare fable, and I love it. The title is compelling, but the part I appreciate the most is “My left collarbone
cracked on the backside of
a challenge made of dirt.” Along with the final line! Provocative poem!
Barb, I like that it reminds you of the tourtoise and the hare fable. This is helpful for me as I recover from an injury in order to start again with competing in my sport. I’m not healed yet, but everyday getting a little closer and it is the hare, the slow and controlled, that will get me where I want to be. I didn’t think of it like that and am so glad you shared that with me.
Amber,
Ooh! “ate a book” is one of my favorite things. Do you know the poem “Eating Poetry”? It’s fun to share w/ students.
Glenda! No! I don’t know that book…I need to know that book. I’m sure I will like it and definitely will like sharing it with students.
Amber, you leave me thinking about what you are doing 3 times a year with images of falling off track and then finding your way back in a slow and controlled way.
Well, I’ve definitely fallen off of my bike more than 3 times a year (I’m on the right in the white helmet). But this fall gave me a broken collarbone. And this means having to start again. I’m not as strong as I used to be and I’m not yet cleared to be back on the track safely. But, I’m working on it. My physical therapist reminds me at every session, slow and controlled. And it was a theme that came up in the book about mastery that I “ate”.
Amber,
I’m really taken by “a book baked of mastery.” Such an unexpected, almost tactile image, like learning is something you can taste, break apart, return to. The repetition of “Once” gives the poem a rhythm of memory and reckoning. It feels like each moment carries weight, especially “my left collarbone cracked,” which brings the body into the story of effort and challenge in such a vivid way.
Peace,
Sarah
The book is Mastery by George Leonard. I picked it up at a book store in search for a book that was going to help me with my mental strength since my physical strength stems from how strong I am mentally, too. I am so glad I have been reading (slowly page by page over months of time) books like this. Yesterday, I went rock climbing and when I got to the top of the climb, which is between 40-50 ft high, I had to climb my way back down until I was only about 5 ft from the ground to jump back and “trust” the ropes because, for the first time in my life, I was scared to just sit back and repel back down to the ground. I want to believe I’m stronger than fear, but I am not. However, I was reminded that I can be afraid and still do things and still be safe. So, the second time I went up the wall, I sat back and repelled the entire 40-50 ft. And again, and again. Leonard’s book shares about how mastery is just that…taste it, break it apart, return to it…and that you do that forever, it’s not once you got it, you got it, it’s something you continue to practice to the very last day. It’s funny you use the word “effot” because two of my favorite vet pros that I train with call our practice runs “efforts”.
Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more! I’m pulled in and wanting to see this in a movie!!!
Stacey, what a fun comment to read. The movie would be great, I think. Internal conflict, external conflict. Victories to failures, failures to victories. Laughing. Crying. And a hopefully a happy ending…one that is victorious, not because I’m at the top of the podium, but because I’m back on track and that’s where the magic happens with joy and sparkle within a community.
Amber, what a powerful metaphorical etheree you have created. It’s a fun read, and I want to hear you tell the stories incorporated in it.
Denise! Oh gosh…I need to deefinitely get better at telling stories. But, it’s so so fun to hear my closest loved ones to tell the stories behind this poem. I’ll have to group them up and have them share it.
A
chain of
knowledge keeps
growing. New links
added this fine day
at Burke Museum of
Natural History. Sweet
sponge Milo asked questions and took
opportunities to tend his mind,
to cultivate his curiosity.
I am so glad you’re adding links with Milo (and most likely building ones for yourself). Art, museums, generations, words. This is a way towards new beginnings always.
Denise, I love your etheree and the way it builds just as Milo’s knowledge grows. “cultivate his curiosity” has a lovely sound, too. Thanks for sharing the photos and your gorgeous poem!
This is lovely Denise….I love the sound of Sweet sponge Milo…how wonderful that he tends his mind and cultivates his curiosity. I love it!
Denise,
Milo is so lucky to have you taking him to museums, teaching him to “tend his mind.” Love the pics.
Denise, the line, “sweet sponge Milo” captures the reason we make our way to those museums to peruse their collections of “stuff!”
Denise,
What a beautiful way to think about learning, “a chain of knowledge keeps growing.” Each link feels earned, connected, part of something larger than a single moment. I’m especially moved by “sweet sponge Milo.” Such a loving, vivid phrase that captures curiosity in motion, soaking up the world with openness and joy. The setting gives the poem a sense of place, but it’s the attention to the people exploring that holds space here. Love it.
Peace,
Sarah
These are wonderful times that you are sharing. I’m so glad you are there to create the connections, create curiosity, and touch the future. Savor every moment!
Denise, I like how you connected “chains of knowledge” and “new links” – smart move. “Sweet spong Milo” is adorable. With a granny, like you, and his curiosity he’ll go far and high. Thank you for the pictures!
Denise, I love your poem and the pictures! And I love love the line, “and took / opportunities to tend his mind, / to cultivate his curiosity.” Yes, Milo!
Milo! OMG. This melts my heart and nothing is better than knowing a child’s mind is being tended to!
“Sweet sponge Milo” is amazing! I love the growing of knowledge and cultivating of curiosity and just the whole idea of spending a day at the museum with a little one so they understand wonder!
When
school starts
library
stacks are full to
brimming; new titles
call out to new students
who might not be used to such
a variety of genres:
horror, thriller, romance, non-fiction
all available and within their reach.
_________________________________________________
Thank you, Stacey, for giving us time and space to reflect on new beginnings!
Fight for the libraries! Fight for the books! Fight for choice always! And I love how, at this school, they are in reach.
Yes, they are all available in the beginning when nothing is lost, misplaced, under a stack of papers…….
Scott,
The image of “stacks…full to brimming” feels abundant in the best way, the way a library space is ready to welcome many kinds of readers at once if only they walk through the door or room or stacks. A gentle awareness runs through the lines about students who might feel unsure at first, and the poem meets that feeling with openness and patience. Yes, possibility, too. Gosh, a book really can change a life.
Sarah
Scott, yes to the libraries! And you brought me back to a childhood with the stacks of books. Library was one of my favorite places. I’d spend a couple of hours reading there and taking home four-five books every few days. Hope your students are using the library which is “within their reach.”
Hi Scott,
I’ve seen several poems this month that make me want to plaster them on library walls. I love how you chose the library when school starts as opposed to the classroom. Such a welcoming place and poem.
This challenge is harder than the others. It’s 4:03 and I’ve not come up with something solid. I stop and go, stop and go. The poem eludes me; I don’t have it yet.
I agree it was hard. I almost didn’t share what I worked on but then decided to just hit send assured it is a draft in progress! Hang in there
Well, I am wondering if you are saying you may not write a poem today or if this is your poem today as a way of showing us about beginnings, a commentary on beginning a poem. Brilliant.
I feel the honesty in “I stop and go, stop and go.” That rhythm captures the experience so clearly, the push and pause of trying to make something take shape.
“The poem eludes me” holds such a familiar tension, that space where something wants to exist but hasn’t quite arrived. A kind of patience is being practiced, even in the frustration.
Peace,
Sarah
Cayetana,
There is a poem right where you left it and posted!! Love it! Get your rest.
Done
I thought
When I moved
‘Bye Iowa,
Thanks for memories
That I take along east
Well, West Virginia. so west
Or at least west of Virginia?
A chance conference encounter chat
U-Haul packed, Iowa, look: I came back!
Full circle, sort of, as I unpacked
And made new friends and bought a house
And realized that I had
Missed all of the corn stands
And even flat land.
But tornadoes?
I did not
Miss them.
Home.
Love taking this geography trip with you Sheila. I love the little riff on the east or westness of West Virginia. I like the Done to Home of your poem. From seeming finality to changes that equaled home.
Ha this is so fun, and I think the etheree worked perfect to tell your “full circle” story – the way it stretches out and comes back “home,” just as you did.
If you lie your poem on its side, you have a bit of flatness of Iowa rising to a mountain in West Virginia and flattening back to Iowa. And tornadoes? Geez. Who needs them?
Answer: no one needs tornadoes. . .
Sheila, this poem screams “home” to me! Yet, you remind us that a “chance encounter” was the force that spurred you home. Lovely
Sheila,
The movement through place names carries a real sense of searching, of trying on what “home” might mean, and the line “full circle, sort of” feels especially honest. Not a perfect return, but a lived-in one, shaped by time and experience. I love how the poem holds both longing and humor, especially in “Missed all of the corn stands / And even flat land. / But tornadoes? / I did not / Miss them.” A whole relationship to place lives in that balance.
Peace,
Sarah
Dear Stacey, your prompt this morning can certainly take many forms as we each interpret significant events and turning points in our journeys. You certainly hit in my heart as I have thought about this all day. While I can only imagine the scary journey of those newly freed from slavery, I’ve been formulating poems in my mind about the many challenges of starting over for a long time as I have been recovering from a late-in-life split from my spouse, home, family-as-it-was. I thank you for helping me put these thoughts out in the universe as another step in my journey. I am sharing two poems about swimming my way back, a process that is ongoing.
Had family, career, spouse, plan until,
On my own, edge of retirement,
I floundered, thrashed, then, swam harder,
Lap after lap, stroke by stroke,
Confidence, Your story
Isn’t over, yet,
You are enough
Resilient
Growing
Strong
Drowning in sadness,
Stroke, kick, breathe through pain, darkness
Stronger, braver me.
Anita, thank you for sharing your story here, so open and beautifully and vulnerably shared. I love the change after the third line where there is floundering, thrashing, and “then swam harder” starts a confident section showing your journey of strength. Those last four lines in your etheree are perfect. Your haiku is a perfect distillation of the etheree too.
Oh, Anita, thank you for sharing your powerful poems and taking the risk to show the difficult change you are facing. Each word generates an emotion, especially floundered and thrashed. The narrator’s voice shows us her inner strength and the reason she must swim harder. Clearly, she’s determined to survive this cataclysmic shift. Your haiku is phenomenal! I am glad it ends with “Stronger, braver me.” Bravo!
Anita,
The swimming imagery w/ the repetitive “Stroke, kick, breathe through pain” speaks to your resilience and strength. I’m struck by how plans go awry even when we do all we can to see them through
Anita,
Thank you for trusting us with some insights into your life. Your story is one that resonates here, and you offer such wisdom. The turn into “Your story / Isn’t over, yet” carries such a powerful shift, almost like a voice rising up from within to answer the struggle. A kind of self-speaking, self-steadying energy lives in those lines, and it feels deeply earned.
And then “You are enough” surfaces a quiet strength, especially alongside “Resilient / Growing / Strong.” Each word feels like a step forward, a reclaiming. Yes, you are doing it.
Peace,
Sarah
Anita, I applaud your bravery in sharing and I have also been swimming in that pool. No one could convince me that life held a better future, and I’m glad I grieved it out fully to cry all the tears out. Everyone was right – life just got better, and I know you are stronger and braver. And more resilient than ever. Hugs and cheers.
Anita, first I thank you for your honesty and for trusting us with your story. I was married 29 years and had to let go. I don’t know your specifics but if it’s any help, there is something on the other side of this split that is waiting for you. It’s just for you. It’s what was always there. You’ll find it or it will find you. Keep swimming, keep breathing, but don’t forget to rest.
Tape your words to your mirror:
dismantling is transformation
change
happens
in small ways
along edges
and in the margins
constant, subtle, minute
the way the tide laps the shore
milkweed migrates throughout one’s yard
doorway, seldom used, becomes dove’s home
this new way of being breaks through, startles
transformation is both a wearing down
and steadfast desire, persistence
engaging the periphery
this insistent melody
let’s make “we the people”
the inherent truth
remake power
demanding
include
all
——
Stacey, thank you for this prompt about beginning again and suggesting an etheree. The Book of Alchemy is a phenomenal resource…fun to see it make its way into our poetry community.
Maureen, your poem about change connecting nature to democracy is powerful and filled with the optimism that so many want to feel. It is a reminder that change can and will come for “we the people.”
Ooh! I love how the first half of your etheree focuses on beautiful, quiet details and then the second half shows the power of small, quiet voices speaking up.
Maureen, what lovely imagery you build in the final lines of the first stanza. I can really picture how you are seeing change and how it does startle.
Oh, yes, Maureen, I love the nature changes and transformations in your first etheree, especially the seldom used doorway that becomes a dove’s home. I like the transition to “we the people” remaking power!
Maureen, wow, the structure of your poem and its message is phenomenal. I like how the change builds in shape and the tide lapping the shore metaphor. Then the second stanza’s shift to show change requires a “wearing down”. It’s definitely the kind of change we need now. It’s just so difficult to be patient. Brilliant poem!
Maureen,
As I read, what feels especially powerful for me today is the pairing of “a wearing down” with “steadfast desire.” That tension holds so much truth. Change asks for both endurance and insistence.
And then the poem opens outward into “let’s make ‘we the people’ / the inherent truth.” The collective “let’s.” A call rises here, grounded in all those small shifts, suggesting that collective change begins in those margins and keeps pressing forward until it reshapes what is possible. And we have to believe that, right? We have to believe it if we are going to do something about it.
Peace,
Sarah
Again
Week
fourteen
means I pull
out my big clothes
my body pillow
start my meditations
and my yoga regiment.
I tell some friends, let others guess
till there’s no room left for guessing cuz
I’m in this till the bottom of the ninth.
That title, “Again” – it’s perfect here. Congratulations! Love the baseball reference, “I’m in this till the bottom of the ninth.” Every pregnancy is a transformative experience, I think.
”The bottom of the ninth”. I like the play on words. This new beginning is full of hope and love. I love that you express the ways you’ll take care of your body and hopefully there are no extra innings.
Agreed: no extra innings! Maybe even top of the ninth instead?
Rachel, your poem is filled with hope and optimism as well as the power that comes from :”let others guess.” I pray your pillow and meditations ease those aches, pains and concerns. I look forward to the bottom of the ninth for you.
I like how the last line convinces the reader of what they were thinking was the secret all along.
Love this, Rachel. The numbers help show the situation well. Love the baseball metaphor, too!
Rachel,
I love the playfulness in “I tell some friends, let others guess,” a sense of holding the news close while also letting it slowly unfold. And then that closing line, “the bottom of the ninth,” brings in such a strong note of commitment and endurance. Love it.
Sarah
We haul our bodies
and all of our detritus
out to the shore.
Our snacks and other sundry
supplies,
our selves and
our each others,
and our other selves along with
books already wilting
with salt wind and sand.
Drinks, chairs, masks,
towels, hats, back up snacks,
boards, fins, sunscreen.
We set up,
we sit.
We look out of ourselves
to see what we can see,
the wind whipped waves,
the ehukai salting us,
preserving us,
absolving us,
another baptism.
And even though we are
nearing 50, we find our selves
sitting in, then digging in
sand, the crushed bodies
of millenia.
We dig deep, reaching the coolness
below and we search for
what?
And we dig deeper, reaching coolness
and courser sand
and it sticks under our nails
in an uncomfortable and familiar way,
and we dig,
deep into the sand that is
every thought
every being has ever had,
worn down into
tiny stars, constellations on shorelines.
We dig
and we reach water
or stone
or bone
and we seefeel the edges of what
we seek.
And when the walls collapse
as we knew they would,
we laugh and we begin
again.
This transports me to the beach in the most beautiful way. The January I turned 50 (six years ago!), my husband and I traveled to Folly Beach from our home in Kentucky so we could participate in the New Year’s Day polar plunge into the ocean. We didn’t build a sandcastle that day, but it did feel like a new beginning. Thank you for your magnificent poem!
Gorgeous. I love that you sent me to the dictionary to find the meaning of “ehukai” – and how that one small word opens up this whole Hawaiian scene. I always enjoy alliteration, so “the wind whipped waves,” may be my favorite line – but the poem as a whole is so lovely, with this mystical pursuit – the digging deep into the sand and thinking of all that may have been and will be. “Seefeel” is a delightful word.
“Seefeel” is my favorite word in this poem. What a great portmanteau verb!
quite the existential crisis wrapped in a great metaphor. I enjoyed the way you put it and I enjoyed reading this today. Thank you.
This is a gorgeous depiction of the transformation that happen to us all at the beach. It does not matter our age!
Jonathon,
What stays with me most is the ending, “we laugh and we begin again.” A gentle wisdom lives there, an acceptance of collapse, of cycles, and of returning once more with curiosity and care.
Sarah
Stacey, thank so much for this prompt! I loved the shape of your poem and the sense of joyful expectation. I sat with the prompt for a bit, allowing memory to unfold; and this is where it led me.
The Substitute
Mrs. Shackelford was my first-grade teacher
in 1976.
Small and quick,
with tidy cotton wrap-skirts and eyelet blouses,
she ushered us lovingly,
but efficiently,
from station to station:
math, phonics, science, geography.
She told us she had two toddlers at home,
and when she was absent
(presumably for them),
her mother,
Mrs. Willoughby
(also a first grade teacher, but retired)
stepped in to man the ship.
She was softer…
solid color polyester dresses,
round collars,
oversized buttons,
eyeglasses nearly too large for her face.
Her upper arms amazed us,
jiggling as she clapped.
“I had a little brother,” she sang.
“His name was Tiny Tim.”
We joined in, remembering the song
from the time before.
“I put him in the bathtub…”
Oh, we were scandalized!
“To teach him how to swim.”
No, no, no, we thought. Surely not!
“He drank up all the water…
and he ate up all the soap.”
We clapped along, eyes wide.
“Now every time he laughs,
he has a bubble in his throat!”
For the grand finale, Mrs. Willoughby
forced out a loud,
realistic-sounding
“HICCUP,”
bringing us to our knees with laughter.
“Again!” we pleaded. “Again!”
Addition, subtraction, reading circles,
temporarily postponed.
She always
began again.
Oh my! My own childhood memories come to life reading this! How I loved Tiny Tim! I am a substitute now and I also related in that level because sometimes we connect with kids in different, more forgiving, ways than I did as a teacher (like singing the song again).
What a fascinating substitute – one’s mother! That is as delightful as this song, which I regale my granddaughters with to the same horror – that, “No, no, no, we thought. Surely not!”
This is just sheer fun, all the way. Amazing how we can remember the details of large buttons and glasses and styles on our first grade teachers (I remember the upside-down egg cartons, each cup holding a pencil in a hole poked there and kept in the middle of each table) but I can’t tell you what I had for lunch two days ago. Oh, the fun when the teacher’s own substitute mother gets in trouble for letting you have too much fun…..that makes me smile just to think about all the troublemaking ways of teachers.
I love this so much. I’m imagining the substitute notes at the end of the day: “Honey, you need to have more fun with your students. That’s what we did today.”
What a lovely memory. Your description takes me there, and I could even find the melody to that song somehow. And I love her jiggly arms!
Lori,
I love how the poem honors the power of joy in learning. “bringing us to our knees with laughter” captures something essential about childhood and teaching, how connection can open a different kind of attention. Even the pause in “addition, subtraction, reading circles” feels meaningful, as if learning expands rather than stops.
Sarah
Stacey, thank you for hosting us today and making a deep, historical connection to this important day. I always appreciate how you add in your images and model this for us. I got distracted with an inner dialogue of beginning again because we lack active listening skills:)
Say what?
ugh, I thought I heard you…
but I was staring out the window, listening to
the rain ricochet off that metal box that’s rusting
what is that by the way?
so, you were saying…
but my phone ping, ding, quack distracted me
notifying me of nothing that was immediate
I should turn those off, including the vibration
umm, what was it you wanted to chat about?…
but hold on, let me go grab some water
I need to be hydrated to process this conversation
hmm, I thought I understood what you were talking about…
but you said the word anxious and I just drifted off
into my own experiences of anxiety, overthinking
what I am about to say or ask and didn’t even listen
ahhh, can we just begin again?…
Stefani,
The urge to stay focused and on task while fully paying attention is hard with all the distractions… the poem does a terrific job of letting the readers in on the secret of what happens… wonderful images, rhythmic elements that really add flow with honesty.
Oh, Stefani, I also live in this distracted space more than I’d like to admit! I loved your word choices and the various distractions you included.
I love that this is about starting and restarting a convo, trying to hear or understand or follow what is being said. Reminds of a TMBG song…where was I, I forgot the point that I was making…
Stefani, I particularly enjoy the way you open this with sound and how the ellipsi throughout the poem create thoughtfulness or tensions and curiosity or the frustration towards starting again, but showing up to do so because it moves us forward
I love this line from the beginning, “the rain ricochet off that metal box that’s rusting” – it offers a rhythm and tapping of where you are at the moment….and the words, “I need to be hydrated to process this conversation” (was it that dry….I just love this use of language).
Stefani! I love this with the ellipses doing some heavily lifting in the space between where we should be listening or where we are caught not listening. I’m smiling in recognition at “my phone ping, ding, quack distracted me,” such a playful and painfully accurate echo of interruption. The wandering attention resonates for sure, especially in “I just drifted off into my own experiences of anxiety.” Such candidness or honesty lives in your lines about how listening can unravel, not from lack of care, but from being so full of thoughts and noise.
Hugs,
Sarah
Stef, my friend, you nailed it. Your poem is what my brain has been doing while April is April-ing!! I needed this. We are not alone.
Stacey,
Thank you for hosting today and delighting us with your poem and prompt rooted in history and culture. Congrats! on your almost retirement and the adventures that await…
The sky
begins to ask
When? There’s no such
thing as the perfect timing.
Begin. Now. Shedding all that’s
unwanted. Begin to make room for
your creative life. The portraits that add
light, beauty, nature and nurture. Perhaps balance
your desires of all your selves with humor and honesty.
Arching towards the night sky. Greeting the expansiveness
with intentionality. Exist in the conjecture of your life. Meaning
and Matter in the now. Begin. The mysteries and the circuitous ruminations
are all around us. Below our sky within the permanence and impermanence.
This is so lovely and put me in a contemplative state. “Arcing towards the night sky. Greeting the expansiveness/with intentionality…” – breathtaking!
I really enjoy the way the visual of this poem urges me to fall down the hill, to give in to the gravity of just starting…
No better time than now. Very beautifully put, another amazing poem from you today, Darshna. I love the word choice and mood throughout!
Darsha, ooooohhhh….the question of the sky! This has me captured. The sky has no limits, does it? We can just keep going and restarting. I also am intrigued how you have “Meaning” and “Matter” capitalized, the effect makes them important.
Darshna, I am really taking by the line “There’s no such/thing as the perfect timing.” The need to shed the unwanted is powerful. I like how your poem opens with the sky speaking and expands by the end. Marvelous poem!
Darshna,
You’re bringing some important truths to our community today: “the perfect timing.
Begin. Now” I love the way “exist” has both a permanence and forward motion in your poem. I also am drawn to the creative arts examples you include. They remind me of “Big Magic.”
I love that the layout of your poem appears as steps leaving downward (perhaps to water) for a plunge in a lake, ocean, or pool….where it’s all about to “Begin.”
I receive and accept this offering!
Stacey, I always welcome a poetic challenge from you and cherish all you bring to the universe (and your students). I know there are endings coming your way, but we all know they’re only beginnings. You always behold every joy, because it’s in your name. I love writing every day in April with you.
All Endings are Beginnings
b.r.crandall (inspired by Stacey Joy)
a nd so he sleeps-in two extra hours, this chud, this slo b
l aughing there’s no milk, no eggs, just leftover chocolat e–
l ove from last night’s Whitman fest. and here he is eatin g
e very morsel for breakfast: molasses. ginger. caffeination. i
n eed renewal. restoration. revival. recovery. The year has bee n
d ecapitating Dionysus big-time, an erasure of dancing with the moon.
i am five decades now. Another blobfish surfing a daily tsunam i,
n arrating lilypads with sea salt & caramel amongst cattails. a ma n
g arnishing tragic one-liners for comedians & morticians…a fro g
s wallowing manic flies all to make a dollar. c’est la vie. revelation s.
a nd here we are again, kid. bildungsroman. aging. acta non verb a.
r eading one another’s mind on a screen, these fingertips togethe r,
e xisting in dialogue with the unknown – the dramatic improv gam e.
b ut today is about hope & opening front doors in underoos. W e
e xist as our own cartoon. Stripe & Yellow climbing a mountai n,
g loriously searching for meaning (wings) after being cocoone d.
i llum oportet crescere, me autem minui. illlum oportet crescere, me autem minu i
nerd. dork. dufus, dingleberry. dweeb, dolt, turd, imbecilic moro n
(n ote to self: self-deprecation is survival). we must keep laughin g.
i t’s our job to roll pesky stubborn groundhogs up caterpillar pile s
n ovember will bring new stories. rhythms. bustling streets. Accr a
g hana. And I’ll be here…ready to read your prayer and hymna l,
s tacey. your poetry, careful & playful. engaging & inevitably joy fu l
acta non verba – actions, not words
illum oportet crescere, me autem minnui – for others more…more me, less.
Hi Bryan, happy Verselove! This is so impressive and I want to know how long this took?:) There is a sense of chaos that your form, words, and topic all bring forth perfectly to create such emotion. Thank you for introducing us to new words and shout out to your modern Ode to Stacey🩵
Bryan,
Your creativity truly unfolds within the poem and visually reminds the readers about all endings are beginnings. There is so much love, reveal, play, rhythm, and joy factor — a beautiful composite and dedication.
Impressive! Love sent over from a fellow blobfish
Mind. Blown. And I love the way you worked Stacey in there, too, first and last names both….you are a wizard of words, aren’t you?? We know you as Bryan, but you are a wizard, I just know it.
Bryan! Happy five decades…I confess that I found myself laughing at you opening doors door in underoos and your rollicking self-depreciation but nothing nothing is further from the truth…enjoy your morsels of molasses and ginger…the moon will never stop dancing with you!
Bryan, my dear friend, how can I adequately express gratitude for a feat such as this! I wonder if you just whipped this out (because you’re clever and brilliant) or did you sit at a desk with 5 cups of coffee and skip lunch? I am in awe. The form alone is mind-blowing. All that you’ve included about me and November, I am speechless.
I adore you!!
Stacey,
Thank you for hosting and for your reflection on Emancipation Day. I’m going to carry that with me today.
I’m so excited for your retirement and your trip to Ghana! Two amazing adventures. Enjoy!
I can feel the love and excitement in your words.
————————————————————————————
Sunrise
in
exhale
on the mat
center myself
still like a mountain
no hurry to arrive
as we prepare for final pose
let myself rest in savasana
sink into stillness, muscles ungrip
now best part of morning practice
vibration of singing bowl
flowing flutter of flute
steady beat of drum
bring attention back
namaste
begin
day
——————————————————
Poem + photo of beautiful wildflowers from my bike ride home at my blog, Pedaling Poet
Sharon, your double nonet is a perfect form to stretch your writing about yoga. Your lines “flowing flutter of flute,” build upon the vibrations that sound bowls bring to our practices. Thank you for sharing.
Sharon,
So glad that you are making time for your yoga practice while offering such beauty with photos and poetry. Love the alliteration embedded throughout the poem.
This poem is like a deep breath in and exhale! What a wonderful way to begin the day.
Another beautiful poem where the visual on the page supports the point of the piece. Wonderful.
Sharon, you have found / created the perfect union of subject & form. And it’s not just the line length but also the line impact. the short i of “sink into stillness, muscles ungrip”, the meter of “let myself rest in savasana” & “flowing flutter of flute”. I guess I’m saying that the robust middle of the poem is so well crafted & lands so well between those gentle framings of the work. PS I am a huge fan of Bansuri music!
Sharon, you have taken us all with you to that place of peace where stillness of mind and body are called. This is a lovely way to start your day when you can!
Hi Sharon,
The flow of the words on the page are breath-like! I can appreciate a morning meditation/yoga practice and hope for mine to develop into something beyond 15 min in retirement. That’s all I can squeeze in before work. Nothing is more soothing than a sound bath and that is what I hear in your poem too.
🧘🏽♀️
out
those things
i won’t use
when summer starts
a classroom empty
of noise, joy and learning
a custodian will clean it
stacking chairs on a blank table top
erasing the colors of chalkboard dust
empty through the dry heat of summer
and then silently waiting for
the return of excitement
and scurrying children
sharing stories
of things
in
I was thinking of empty classrooms but now there are few that remain unused through the summer months. Thanks, Stacey, for this prompt and double thank you for a couple of you that I have not thanked. This month together is great!
Susan, the idea of a classroom empty of joy is heartbreaking and powerful. How many classrooms experience this during the acadamic year and not solely in summer–I don’t even want to think about it! Thank you for sharing today.
Susan,
A beautiful job of capturing the empty classroom and the end of the school year!
Susan, I was completely pulled into the images of your poem, and it sure resonated for me. I adore the way you crafted this one beginning with out and ending with in. Brilliant!
Hi Susan,
Isn’t it great that only teachers understand the silence of our summer classroom spaces? You captured the sweet essence of this quiet and still time.
I agree this month has been great! Thank you for writing with us today. 🌺
Stacey, how perfect that you are going traveling right away after retirement, and to Ghana! Perfection. That photo on your poem is amazing. I’ll be thinking of my poem during this busy day and writing later.
Thank you for the prompt. This prompt brought to mind the new landscape of myself that I am trying to figure out after successfully going through cancer treatment about 3 years ago. You think the anxiety and fear would disappear but still trying to navigate all the feelings.
Cells
healthy,
treatment worked
cancer free now!
Should feel elated
Fear persists in my mind
battling its rise every day
desiring days filled with joy
fully being absolutely fine
Who will the victor be- hope, faith or fear?
This hits so home for many. We can relate. I have a cancer survivor in my family that doesn’t seem to be too worried about it returning and I have someone else in my family who is always worried it may.
Thank you for trusting us with this poem. The shoulding alongside battling and desiring is powerful. Those whispers of doubt are loud.
I will always vote for hope and faith!
C.M.,
Thanks for sharing this difficult reality with us.
You capture so well the conflicting feelings we have after trauma.
Sending good wishes for hope and faith. Take care and be gentle with yourself.
Glad the treatment worked! Rooting for you with love and faith. Thanks for sharing this poem with us.
One of my best friends often shares with me her nervousness about upcoming scans. This poem brought her to mind immediately. Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem, filled with your fears but mostly your bravery.
It’s strong. I imagine the fear never leaves. Its imprinted a scar since the day you first heard about having cancer. Yet, it is the faith and hope that set you free. I am so happy that you have healed.
My husband was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 small cell carcinoma. I feel that fear your poem shares, the constant battle and wanting to be filled with joy. Your closing question is compelling. Tears and hugs!
Oh no! I’ll add him to my prayer page. I keep all the names of loved ones fighting cancer on my fridge on a special paper with a prayer for healing.💜
I pray that you remain cancer free also. Have you read Suleika’s books or blog? I think you would appreciate her. Her cancer journey is remarkable. One of my very close friends is battling pancreatic cancer and had to retire early. It just sucks that so many suffer and not enough is done for the cure.
I think cancer despite treatment has a haunting effect on those it strikes. Remission is time-sensitive, so your anxiety is understandable. I had minor skin cancer treatment a few years ago and now am keenly aware of every tiny blemish that pops up on my face, and I found bout this morning at 2:00 a.m. Vietnam time I need a hysterectomy to address what I’m hoping are only precancerous issues. This fear of cancer is ubiquitous, and you are wise to be watchful and aware.
Thank you for the prompt. What a challenge this one was!
Blank Page
I wait beneath the weight of your still hand
unmarked, unproven, still smooth and blank
what I will be asked to hold now?
will I bear your broken lines?
will the words come today?
feel the press of doubt
ink scratching through
eraser
scars burn
slow
still
I wait
to feel your
words begin, to
feel your pen move with
purpose across my lines,
to capture, carry, share a
moment that’s real, to hold the
shape of your voice, to become more than
empty space, I wait to be truth’s vessel.
So intimate. The use of you, that direct address offers such an intertwined, maybe enmeshed calling maybe permission to feel “your words.” Lovely.
“What will I be asked to hold now?” A weighty yet valiant responsibility. You write it so well, Melanie. to be “truth’s vessel”. Awesome work.
You last line- “I wait to be truth’s vessel.”- provides closure and is the truth for my blank notebook pages. They hold the truth of my thoughts that I don’t share aloud with other. My notebook is my truth vessel- contains so much of my honesty of myself.
What a gorgeous poem Melanie! So many lines that really ask the readers to move, sense, and feel the urgency. The last line — amazing.
This is a wonderful celebration of the promise offered by a blank page…a challenge and joy only writers can know. My favorite lines: “to capture, carry, share a/moment that’s real, to hold the/shape of your voice, to become more than/empty space, I wait to be truth’s vessel.” – Wow!
Melanie, wow! If you had not said this was a challenge I would have thought you’ve been writing this form for many years. This is outstanding. You give so much life to the process of writing.
Starting Again… Again
This morning I awoke
Slowly,
Not before the rays of sun
Lit up the horizon.
Oh no!
I’m late!
How could I have slept right through that alarm?
I stop.
Pause.
Pray.
Restart my day….
Breathing in the light,
The cool air,
The fog clinging to the trees.
I murmur a quick “thank you”
To the powers that be
For the life
so freely given to me.
On my drive
I reflect
On the life I live today.
So many new chances,
So many things to do,
New ways to love animals,
And even people too.
Once upon a time
I started a lonely journey
Broken hearted
Beat down
And scared.
I had to rebuild:
My life,
My things,
My confidence.
Learning curves…
Sharp,
Squiggly,
Treacherous at times.
Then springtime came
New birth
Regrowth
Tender shoots of new life.
The sun came up,
Golden rays…
Flooding my life again.
Old habits
Creep back in
Isolation,
My old friend,
Comes to my mind again.
The voices get louder,
Stronger,
Meaner.
I fall from grace.
Avoiding
The life that
I once built,
that now has
become a lie.
Hopelessness
Envelopes me
Again.
I reach out,
Make a call
Go to a certain place,
Feel that hope…
A tiny seed,
Sprouting in my soul.
The sun comes up
The dew on the grass
Greets me anew.
Starting over…
4-16-26
-Carrie Horn
This prompt made me think of how starting over isn’t necessarily a one time thing. So I wrote about how even when we start over, sometimes we still need a new start…. Again.
Carrie, this was so zen. Even the structure of the poem underscored the zen simplicity of it. Loved it!
I feel the measured, thoughtful, constant breathing of these short, staccato lines. Well done!
The form of your poem offered such a metaphor for starting again and again with the rhythm and pace and frenzy and calm and wonder and certainty. Yes. I feel this and needed your poem today.
So true, Carrie! I definitely can relate to fresh starts and restarts. I appreciate how your poem recognizes the need for starting over, and then starting over again.
Your poem is full of life and hope. I love the cycles with beginnings and your thankfulness for them.
Carrie, your poem is so honest and heartfelt. My son is five years sober and he always reminds me that living one day at a time is the only way to make it. I believe that’s what is meant by beginning again over and over.
Thank you for sharing something so beautiful and deeply personal.
Carrie, how right you are that starting over is not a one-time thing. It’s more like one step forward and two steps back at times. The despair in your poem builds and I was so glad to see hope suddenly making itself known. That green thing that sprouts and opens our hearts to possibilities and our eyes to nature – which is constant even in its cycles of change. Well-done!
Thanks, Stacey. I can feel your excitement as you anticipate this trip. Enjoy your Motherland’s love. Here’s my try at an Etheree…
Six
deaths in
last six months
shadow my soul.
How do I begin
to heal a grieving heart?
Tears fall when least expected.
I need to give in and release.
Clearly, tears are the bath of healing
cleansing my grief so memories can shine.
Rita, I have had six in the past seven months. It is hard to know where to begin. I love the last two lines!
I’m sorry for your loss. Grief is one of the hardest challenges we can face. I agree with you that “tears are the bath of healing.” May your tears bring you hope and healing.
Rita. I hear a yearning for that cleansing, that washing away, maybe uncovering the memories. And maybe that will come in poems you write to celebrate your love for these loves-friends. The poems wait. Hugs.
So sorry about all of your losses. Your poem exposes with honesty that grief has an unexpected grip on us. Those tears we cry are just what you say- tears are the bath of healing.” Beautiful words chosen by you.
Wow! So sad to hear of all this loss in your life in a short period of time. The tears are a blessing of healing but there are so many drops that they inspired a book called “Tear Soup.” Have you read it?
Rita,
So much weight and wisdom in your short poem.
I’m so sorry for your six losses in six short months.
Sending peace and love.
Rita, each word of your poem wrenches at my heartstrings. “How do I begin/ to heal a grieving heart?” That is the question. Writing surely helps heal the pain, but grief often has its way especially with the flood of tears that can happen so suddenly because of an unexpected memory or because grief simply does not know how to navigate a moment at various times. Powerful poem and I’m so deeply sorry for all of the losses you’re hurting from.
Rita,
My heart goes out to you. A friend told me many years ago that one of the hardest parts of growing older is that more people in my circle will die. I thought that was awful to tell me something like that, but as I’ve gotten older, I see the truth in it. Let those tears flow and feel all your feelings.
Oh my goodness, Rita – the loss is staggering! My heart goes out to you. The line that speaks to me the loudest here in your etheree is “I need to give in and release.” I believe C.S. Lewis said “No one told me grief felt so like fear.” I think about the attempt to avoid/escape fear, and how paralyzing it is. Maybe the kinship with grief is true…giving in and releasing will bring some element of comfort. Your lovely observation, “Tears are the bath of healing,” reminds me of the quote “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” I say let the tears do their thing! Oh, those memories WILL shine. Blessings to you-
Stacey, thanks for the inspiration. I had a new beginning of sorts in my classroom some years back.
Reminder
Frustration ricochets off my brain
and out my mouth
Then, a voice I know well:
I’m patient with you
Be patient with them
A divine rebuke
A gentle reminder to improve
Such a relatable verse. I love the use of a Divine voice, the voice that often calls us to new beginnings.
Melissa,
Oh. Those words in italics are striking. How they slip in. How that voice knows when to whisper.
Ah, the divine rebuke is wisdom. You (as well as I) are blessed to have that voice.
Yes. Sometimes a painful rebuke. But I also love when I’m reminded that “my mercies are new every morning….go, teach, learn, shine…” I’m grateful that my higher power rebukes gently, but still rebukes. Giving me the option to make the changes and to soften if I need to.
Ouch! I needed to hear this today. I have been much less patient with my fifth graders lately and I’m needing to slow up and think about the patience that is bestowed upon me. Thank you for teaching me my lesson for the day.☺️
Stacey,
Thank you for guiding up to thinking about beginning again. There certainly are BIG new beginnings and subtle ones. I love your poem and the image you incorporated really adds power.
I am sorry I’ve been a little radio silent on responding. I had a dang pickleball injury sideline me a little. Trying to be active doesn’t always end well!
New Me
mom
teacher
wife and friend
love supporting,
being for others
each day full of doing
getting up and going, going
days full of leading and helping
teach, taxi, feed, cheer, grade, clean, repeat
pouring my love into everyone else
retirement and empty nest coincide
carving out a new normal each day
students and kids not needing me
my heart to help still beating
but now selfish pursuits
can take up my day
can breathe in me
finding self
my core
me
~susan ahlbrand
16 april 2026
New beginnings can be hard. It takes time to adjust to a new normal. I appreciated the words “finding self, my core, me.”
I love the juxtaposition of one part of life with another. Retirement is such a big change, especially when you leave a career like teaching. I’m ten years out and still miss it, but also love the opportunities that retirement offers. Bless you!
Oh, this a poignant reflection. I feel an echo from pandemic poems 6 years ago somehow. Maybe that being away from students, maybe that reclaiming some of the rhythms we have when not teaching or not planning on teaching again, which comes from retirement. Finding a core me. That resonates with me too. Sending appreciation for your poem today, and I hope your injury heals.
I don’t know that these are selfish. I don’t know about kids not needing you either. They do, just perhaps differently.
I so identified with your first stanza and your 2nd one gives me a view into what retirement will hold. It will definitely be an adjustment from teaching and a full house to just me and my husband. The line “my hear to help still beating” stood out to me. Your words are helping others prepare for this big switch.
“Now selfish pursuits can take up my day…” yes. No longer in the classroom, I’m a sub now. Many of the benefits without the drawbacks. But I also look forward to that day when I can volunteer and read with kids and invest in ways that don’t cost what teaching cost me.
Susan, I enjoyed this poem. I, too, am in this stage of life…retirement, empty nester. I think it’s time for us to embrace those “selfish pursuits.”
Yes, yes, yes, Susan! I am not sure what I will feel when these next 37 days pass. However, I know the first etheree all too well. Waiting to embrace the second.
Well done, Superwoman!!!!
Stacey, thank you for introducing me to the etheree form, and more importantly to you. So many things unspooled in my mind when you wrote of your “stories, rhythms, and spirits”. When I think of beginnings, I think of how lucky we teachers are — we have so many beginnings with young people. I post things I write here. My offering today is yet another attempt at blank verse, this time nine lines for my ninth graders : )
Four more years
Every August, a new batch of freshmen
arrives. All elbows & knees, brand new shoes,
cotton candy perfume. Roller backpacks
a thing of the past. Over the summer
they’ve had two-a-days, some assigned reading,
and painstakingly curated glow ups.
On this hopeful walk, though, printed schedules
won’t prevent missteps. That’s where I come in.
“Good morning” “What’s your name?” “Have a great day!”
You had me at the start with your description of these new freshman and the ending was perfect…familiar phrases that mean so much.
I’m very acquainted with this new beginning. The starting of a school year always brings hope and keeps me going. Thank you for sharing so vividly the joy of a new school year.
Ahhh!! the freshness of freshmen every year– you definitely captured the moment. Nice Work!
I’m not ready for that yet! We have 6 weeks left of this school year and then I’m going to enjoy my break before we get back to that! Nice poem though. Maybe I’ll pull it back out in August
This is sweet, Joel. I love this fresh start hope and the way a teacher can offer such a space of hope and learning amd becoming.
Joel,
I can feel the love, warmth and gentle amusement in your poem.
Thank you for reminding me of the promise of a new school year. Those early days in each school year were some of my favorites. I loved your description of the new freshmen class, all their hope…their tentativeness, and you there to welcome them.
Joel,
i’m glad you enjoyed this form. Your poem gives me all the feels of school in August! I can only imagine how much more magnified all of the senses are for middle school and high school students.
Love the image too!
Stacy, thanks for your prompt and the joyful anticipation you’ve captured in both words and picture.
Birth of a Rebel
I
was too
young for Woodstock
and anyway, too shy.
Still, I wore bellbottoms and
flowers in my long brown hair.
I believed in peace and love, listened
to Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary ask
how many ears must one man have before he
can hear people cry? I too wondered. Now I march.
How well you described the going from being an “onlooker” that contemplated change to a person who marches forward and makes it happen. I could relate so well. At 77, I attended my first protest in October.
What I love about this is the multiple sets of images it creates! I think of the ways in which different kinds of gatherings and art forms are protests. I love how you incorporated lyrics. The line that grabbed me though and connected me strongly to the poem was “and anyway, too shy” that was such a real personal moment. This is poem that will stick with me today.
Ann, I feel like we would have hung out during this time. I was (and still am) into the whole vibe of the decade but would have been too shy to full on participate. Your lyric line resonates. There’s no hesitation to march full on now!
I think what I loved about your poem was the relatability. And I felt a call to arms at the end. Thank you for sharing. I thought it was magical and very well done.
Ann,
I love that you mentioned being too shy for Woodstock! I have never thought of that but I’m certain there were people who missed out for exactly that reason. I love your perspective and keep marching!
Ann,
Love the title and the lines you cite. Your poem pretty much describes my rebel journey.
Stacey, thanks for much for this prompt today. I loved your poem about Ghana — so exciting that you’re planning to go there!
My poem was kind of a shock to me today — don’t know where it came from but I like it!
“Dzięki: Aunts, Take a Bow”
“Take care of the aunts,” my mom always urged:
And notions of duty and family merged.
Aunt Laura and Phyllis, the two spinster sisters,
For mysterious reasons had never found misters.
They tended Aunt Alice, performed required deeds
She had Down’s Syndrome and they saw to her needs.
To these old Polish aunts were our visits required:
Young me was not thrilled when these visits transpired:
A musty old kitchen with formica table
A cramped little living room, dusted when able
Mom would spend time in convo with aunts
While, lonely, I rambled, with ants in my pants.
As I grew older, Mom urged me to pedal
down to aunts’ for a visit (did that test my teen mettle)
We visited, chatted, after Alice passed away
and eventually Phyllis passed, Laura to stay
alone in her house, til the day that she passed
I remember the hospital, breathing her last
Her last words of wisdom, I leaned close, across:
She breathed to me: “Always remember to floss!”
My mom and I giggled o’er words so mundane –
(yet good advice, true, for avoiding tooth pain!).
Then, later the will, and a shocking surprise:
Laura had quite a haul – aunts were up to their eyes
In money they’d hidden in various places,
Crammed all of their cash into dubious spaces.
And, lo, I was granted, a decent surprise
That gave me the freedom to plan and to rise
above my small nest and move out on my own:
From home of my parents to friends was I flown
And tasted the freedom my aunts never had
Which began with their money that funded my pad.
Mom and Dad, too, were graced with some cash from the ladies
That allowed them to soften financial maladies
Enabling down payment on first blessed house
And easing the tensions between spouse and spouse.
So, thanks to Aunt Laura and Phyllis (and Alice)
For giving me strength to progress to this palace –
For blessing my parents for all their attention,
their help easing years of financial tension.
Respecting one’s elders has a karmic conclusion:
Don’t let old relatives live in seclusion.
Bless them with visits and love and affection
Maintaining familial, loving connection.
What a delightful narrative poem. Your rhyme was amazing (I love rhyming poems) and the way this story transpired offered such detail. Talk about a happy end and a wonderful theme for all to remember. I’ve written many more rhyming poems than free verse, and like you, I often “don’t know where they come from!” Great job, Wendy.
Wendy, what fun was this! I love a poem with good rhythm and this felt like a Dr. Seuss story, with everything falling so naturally. More importantly, hearing of the gifts of your aunts (multiple gifts and aunts!) brought further levity to the weight of all of the caring that these relationships brought.
It was fun reading about your two aunts. Thank you. I too am a spinster aunt. Smile
Cayetena,
No offense intended! That’s how our family referred to them…back in the day.
Wow, Wendy!
What a sweet story told in rhyme with humor and wisdom—impressive!
These aunts are wonderful characters! I marvel at your rhyme while maintaining the integrity of this family tale. I love it!
Wendy, this is amazing! I had no idea what to expect so the twists/turns, and hilarious surprises gave me so much joy! And the life lesson about taking care of the elderly resonates with me because I only have a few relatives left that are in their 90s. I’ll check in with my aunt Joyce as soon as I finish reading poetry! Thank you for this beautiful poem and for sharing something so special.
I return changed, though I still say We
when I mean the self I was, the self that held hope
like something fixed, instead of something we learn to
carry lightly, the way these places teach us to behold.
I borrowed a line from Stacey’s poem for a golden shovel. Gracias.”We hope to behold.”
I love the way you borrowed this particular line from Stacey’s (such Joy) poem. And in four lines you communicate so much of a journey. I love I love the idea of carrying hope lightly, rather than something fixed. I love / to believe / in hope (Brendan Kennelly – World’s Oldest Trilogy from Poetry My Arse). Cheers for a great day.
Sarah, loved this rumination on your travels (I’m guessing?). That last line was lovely. Looking forward for days not spent in survival mode, but in places that teach me, again, to behold.
I can so identify with your words ” the self that held hope like something fixed”.
Sarah,
Thank you for this gentle tribute to the way travel changes us.
Love that you honored Stacey’s poem with a golden shovel.
Ahhh, Sarah, how grateful I am to have words in YOUR beautiful poem. Hope deserves to be carried lightly. Love this!
Sarah, a lovely seed starter from Stacey’s poem and also a shared truth of your time on Sabbatiment. Travel teaches us things we would never learn otherwise, and I’m so glad you took the opportunity to do this together.
Sarah, I really love the way you incorporated Stacey’s poetry today in your own poem. Love “ instead of something we learn to
carry lightly, the way these places teach us to behold.”
Beautiful truth and poem!
Thank you, Stacy, for a wonderful prompt and awesome example.
I cherish you ALL, any readers, any writers, all of you. Keep holding on!
The
fences
crumbled down
the walls also
into dust. But I
don’t trust this new freedom.
freedom is fleeting. At least
for those like us. The master’s (or
former master’s?) eyes don’t agree with
the fences the walls my plate and my back
and my pockets don’t agree with the word
emancipation. Maybe someday,
if I am hopeful, but not today.
All I have ever known
is want and struggle,
it won’t change with
one word or
in one
day
Luke, I agree with you 100%. Freedom is not a one day possibility, especially for us. Well done!
“But I
don’t trust this new freedom.”
Luke, I agree with you 100%. And it will definitely not happen for us in one day. I pray it happens in the lifetime that we get to live. Thank you for your powerful double etheree!
I’ve been saying lately, I don’t trust TRUST itself anymore…living in paradigm shifts with tremendous unknowns can be overwhelming. Like you write, Luke, I do cherish the writing….the sharing…the reflection together. I trust in this process. The shape your poem takes is wonderful…artful. The word pocket stands out, too, as this poem truly could be a poem for the pocket (tucked away to let others know who you are). Even if hope remained as the other evils flew out of the box, whether or not its intensions are for good…well…that is the crux for us all. Congrats on this poetic response today!
Luke, you are so right. There is more than one way to build fences and it’s hard sometimes to believe things will ever change. I find my hope here in the words people write and the love and kindness they share.
Luke – your poem sings its haunting truths and the line that resonated most with me is “I don’t trust this new freedom.” I feel the depth of it. This freedom is the unknown; will it prove itself worthwhile? Will it be lost too easily? I love how the narrator hopes be hopeful – but not yet. All so powerful.
New
Books wait
Flyleaf stands
Tall and waiting
Protecting the realm
Encasing love stories
Intergalactic battles
Awaiting in a fantasy
Dreamed up by an author I don’t know
But still treasured as if by my own friend
Ashley, books always sound exciting. Love the final two lines that solidify your love for books.
Yes, books are to be treasured, and authors seem like friends.
And how to get students to love reading? It’s a struggle, but so worth it. Thank you.
Ashley, this is beautiful, and I imagine seeing it on the walls of every library.📘💜
Ashley, inspired to write about beginning a new book! Beautiful sentiments that I relate to. 🙂
Ashley,I feel the same way about books. And the line “flyleaf stands” is fantastic!
Stacey, I feel your anticipation of your trip to Ghana. I went to Africa 10 years ago and have never forgotten the rich experience. I’d love to go again.
We live on a bayou and watch our wood duck house with a Ring doorbell camera. We already had one clutch hatch and are hoping for another one.
Anticipating
When
eastern
sunlight gleams
a beam across
greening cypress trees,
another wood duck hen
flies in, wiggles her belly
beginning a new clutch to watch
in hope for new life to lay waiting.
Cycle of birth always a miracle.
I love it that every time it is always a miracle. When you write about it, we get to see it, too.
Margaret, this is wonder to witness:
“another wood duck hen
flies in, wiggles her belly
beginning a new clutch to watch”
Your final line seals the message beautifully!
a miracle indeed. We take it for granted, I fear. Thank you.
Hi Margaret,
I’m amazed at how you always share the beauty of your bird friends in your poetry. Even though they’re not my favorite creatures, I adore the miracle of their birth.
Margaret, love this! I’m a fellow bird enthusiast, and this filled my heart with joy.
This is beautiful. Such a moment captured here for us to see. Thank you.
Oh my gosh! I’ve hatched duck eggs in an incubator but never in had any ducks hatch them out! The anticipation is right! Fun!
Definitely exiting times!
Margaret, you make me want to put a Ring camera in my own bird boxes to see if I can watch as eagerly as you do if there is enough light out there. What a fun way to anticipate new life – – I always appreciate your sharing Jump Day!
What a great beginning to look forward to! It’s a great prompt, to think of starting something new. I recently started The Book of Alchemy.
Just Begin
New journal
Clean pages
Wanting words
Contemplate
Lift your pen
Wait for words
Heart opens
Your hand moves
Words appear
Diane, you imagine a wonderful beginning in a tricube. I love how the brevity of this form allows you to say what you want with no fillers. The final stanza is a magic in action.
Yay!! I’m so happy that you’re reading the book. I’m using it to guide my 100 days of journaling. I’m on day 60. I just finished her audiobook, Between Two Kingdoms. Outstanding!
Your poem captures what we go through as writers. Thank you for sharing this gift.
Diane, Love the idea of new beginnings in writing — that new journal feeling is without peer!
Is there anything better than a new journal? I love this description, especially the line, “Wait for words.” I’ll have to check out this book.
Oooooh Diane,
This is delightful. And your tricube works so well as a choice of form.
Isn’t it amazing what happens when we take the time to write, especially when we make it a habit?
Diane, I always love a new journal! This poem captures the thoughtful pause followed by the magic of story…or memory recorded…or poem!
This is a perfect testament to the writers’ acts of writing…..we wait and they come to us. I too have picked up Between Kingdoms and have the other of her books, The Book of Alchemy, coming my way through another library.
Friends,
I arrived late to commenting *yesterday* as y’all snoozed, so I hope you’re revisiting your poems. I’ll be back later w/ my poem. Meanwhile here’s my dinner view in Hue, Vietnam.
Love the night view, Glenda! I will keep the image through another long day on campus. Will be reading and writing in the evening. Get some rest.
What a powerful story from history, Stacey…it really made me think about what that moment must have been like. To have only known chains and bondage, and suddenly, they’re gone. How exhilarating and terrifying, all at the same time. I love the images and details in your poem as well…I can picture being there. What an exciting journey!
I decided to write a reverse etheree, about the desire for transformation that always hits me this time of year. As teachers, we are both blessed and cursed with a fresh start every school year.
Next Year…
It always hits in April–the desire
to reinvent, to do things better.
Looking toward next year, what will change?
What new lesson, what new text,
what new activity?
Will I ever stop?
If I do, then
I will know
it is
time.
I remember well that regretful feeling of April, especially on the cusp of testing. I retired last year and yesterday when I watched a school bus pass, I tensed then relaxed. You will know. Believe me, you will know.
Well said, I’m only in year 3 but hitting roadblocks and discouragement along the way. Thank you for this.
Julie, I feel this in my core every year. As I’m nearing retirement and June the feeling is different. I feel deep grief and joy simultaneously. You nailed it because the exhilaration you feel for the start of the new year is your sign that you’re still in it. Enjoy these last months.
Julie, so much truth in this poem! As a fellow teacher, this was so relatable — I, too, start thinking about what I would have done differently and how I CAN do things better next year. I’m anticipating how weird it will feel, next year, my last teaching year, when this feeling will befall me — but will be unncessary.
You captured the magic of teaching in this poem. I remember how excited I felt as I was planning for the following year before the current one even ended. “Will I ever stop?” I didn’t think I would and still miss teaching.
I remember that feeling every year . . . what was undone or done in a sub-par way . . . but feeling it was too late in April, and I just needed to make note for next year.
You are correct . . . whenyou quit planning, thinking weighing, evaluating, it’s time to change.
I love the reverse etheree! I can feel the spring new-ness!
Stacey, thank you for the great prompt. What an exciting trip to look forward to!
I wrote two etherees linked together, one ascending and one descending.
Loss and Love
I
lost the
love of my
life to cancer
shockingly, quickly.
He was my everything.
He is still my everything.
I long to hear his voice again,
to see his mischievous eyes and smile.
Hoping he appears in my dreams tonight.
Dreams and memories are all that I have
to get me through the long, lonely days.
The glimpses of the past must do
life lines when I’m feeling blue,
the laughs, the tears, the love.
These must sustain me.
For I believe
in my heart
love lives
on.
Rita–I am so very sorry for your loss. There are times when “beginning again” feels impossible. I hope you can heal, and carry that love with you.
Rita, I feel such a warmth toward you in this time of grief. I cannot imagine how tough it is. I love how you’ve captured your feelings in this double etheree that ends and begins again with a dream. Love lives on. I believe this, too, but know how hard absence of the person himself is. I hope writing and sharing are healing for you.
Love lives on…
I feel for you Rita, I can not imagine this new beginning for you. We are all with you, and so so sorry for your loss.
Rita, this was beautiful! The form so perfectly underscored the meaning.
I am so so sorry for your loss and have been thinking of you often since I read your first poem. Grief can be a physical pain and I hope sharing with us lightens your heart.
Rita, you so poignantly express this time of grief, but I also hear a sense of hope and conviction that nothing can ever take the love that live on. Bless you!
This is such a sweet, albeit sad, ode to your love. Thank you for sharing it.
Rita,
Again, thank you for trusting us with caring for you during your time of grieving. I am certain he is with you. Someone told me after my mom passed that she is right in my face, closer than she had ever been while she was alive. I see her now.
He’s right there in your face. Hugs and hold onto those life lines.
Rita, I feel every bit of the narrator’s longing in your poem today. Love the hope offered at the end. I am so deeply sorry for your loss!
Rita, I thought of your journey, holding onto “dreams and memories” when I read this prompt earlier today. I share your belief that love lives on and lives as well in your memories. A hug through cyberspace.
While this poem breaks my heart, it captures the essence of what love is and it lands on the keY:
Stacey, your prompt caused me to investigate the origins of the word freedom, which was so much more interesting than I’d imagined. I cannot imagine the feelings you will have in seeing Ghana, this place where “stories, rhythms, and spirits commune”. I love that you’ve envisioned the beginning again full of words, movement, and history. Yesterday, when the 7th graders and I were discussing our rights, we examined how our given right to an education caused it to become less important and how it can still be taken away with bans on what is taught. And well, I’ve now written more here than in the actual poem (maybe I’m haibunning it?).
Is the land of the free-
truly that
if we leave our fate
in the hands of the -dom?
Jennifer!!! Mic drop whether you “haibunned” or just told the truth! Fascinating use of freedom!
💜
Jennifer, your poem is so clever! It sums up the state of our country in four little lines. The answer is so scary.
You have the best discussions with your students. The fear of our fate is all too real these days. Do your students feel it too?
My 7th graders give me hope that the world is going to be ok. They have more anxiety than grades ever before, but they see what they are facing and want to fix it.
Oh, my Jennifer, you’ve packed so much just by breaking free-dom. Knowing some other words with -dom (as kingdom, for instance) magnifies your message, and then I somehow mentally extended -dom to doom. Bravo!
ooh, nice, Thanks, Jennifer, what a thought provoking set of a few words
Jennifer, this made me laugh out loud! Too true!
Jennifer, this poem is short, to the point and oh-so-clever that I lol’d as they say!
Jennifer,
I saw a meme recently that illustrated how unfree we are, and w/ don-con it’s getting worse.
So clever! I love it!
Hi, Stacey! Thank you for today’s invitation… the call to “begin again” can indeed apply to so many things. Your lovely etheree imparts a palpable sense of anticipation for the journey, the gathering, the celebration. It is vibrant – and its placement over that particular photo is spectacular. Your artistry is powerful.
Today I went with a pantoum. Didn’t start out with that form in mind. Wrote the first two lines and they basically said “Pantoum us.”
Alrighty then…
Drafts
Without judgment
they wait for me
so many stories
unfinished
They wait for me
characters I dreamed up
unfinished
frozen in time
Characters I dreamed up
and real people I knew
frozen in time
keep whispering: Start anew
And real people I knew
(so many stories)
keep whispering: Start anew
without judgment
ooooooh, how wonderful! I love it when a poem is bossy. I really hope you find time to get “back” to those stories and characters. What a great place of new to begin.
Thank you, Fran! You may not have intended to give me advice, but I needed this today:
I am ready!
👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽
Fran, I love that your poem is encouraging you to “start anew without judgment.” I often feel that my unfinished or in-progress writing often taunts me.
I’m glad you went with this bossy poem form. It’s so hard to turn off the critic when you are writing. Trust your gut. Trust the process. Your characters need your trust.
Very nice Fran! It was already good, but that last stanza with “real people” make it that much better. I love how you combined these two ideas and your final lines are also awesome
Fran, you really capture the essence of trying to be a writer. These abandoned drafts feel like they have a life of their own, calling us back to them, holding on to a piece of our heart. “Start anew” is a great mantra and one needed to hear.
“Without judgment…” when it is accomplishing something I’ve long procrastinated (I have PhD in procrastination), I face a lot of judgement. Me. Judging me. In my mind. Out loud. Everywhere.
Fran, these unfinished stories make me think of Ada Limon’s poetry seeds, where she writes the poem and puts it in a drawer and waits to see how it blooms…..comes back to it with a different perspective after it sits a little while. I know you are always writing and having so many stories to share, and I can’t wait for you to start anew and dive right in and tell them.
Fran, pantoums can be so tricky, but yours flows effortlessly. Love the frozen in time and whispering images. I can hear the voice urging to “Start anew.” Gorgeous poem!
Fran, this is a post I could have written but I might have (before reading yours) beat myself up for all the unfinished business. You have the right perspective to “start anew without judgement.”
Good Morning Verse Lovers, Stacey, what a great prompt! I made a list of 25 ways to begin again and ended up adding a verse to an old nursery rhyme. Fun and quick and my morning writing needs to be today!
Old:
Mistress Mary
quite contrary
how does your garden grow?
with silverbells, and cockleshells
and pretty maids all in a row.
new:
See there, Mary?
don’t be wary
herbs can also grow!
tansy, dill and camomille
parsley, mint and oregano.
Wonderfully playful, Linda! I love it – beats, rhyme – perfection! Chef’s kiss!
Linda, oh my goodness!!! I want to try this with my students! So fun and relatable.
🪴
Such a cute turn on Mary, Mary!
So cute and clever!
Linda,
This is delightful. Thanks for the trip down memory lane plus the trip forward into the beauty of
I love the response to an old rhyme – – it goes with modernizing our texts, and these new beginnings are fresh and fun!
Stacey, thank you for hosting us today and inspiring us to think about freedom and restraints – and the presence or absence of them. You’re the second person to recommend The Book of Alchemy, so I put it on an interlibrary loan and hope to be holding it without a wait very soon. I used your etheree and tried to follow in your footsteps today as you lead us. Thank you, friend, and I love your VerseLove picture logo!
Rocinante
when
freedom
(retirement)
comes in August
I hope to behold
Steinbeck’s Rocinante
packed and ready to explore
Open Roads of America
enjoying the journey as much as
the destination: learning how to breathe
Kim…every day someone is asking me when I plan to retire. My response: I am not there yet. But I long for it, and I celebrate yours glimmering on the (near) horizon. Love that you define “freedom” as “retirement” – preach – and you capture exactly what I long for most in that last line” learning how to breathe. I am in the stage of life where I frequently ask, with a number of things: “Is this worth it/Am I being a slave to this” and thinking about freedom. Yes. The leaves are stirring – fresh breaths of air are on the way. Here’s to the journey and those to come!
Wheeeeee! Happy for you. What a wonderful new beginning. I love this prelude of hope.
Kim, that is a magnificent plan! I envy you a tiny bit, but so happy for you. You deserve to explore all kinds of roads. Learning to breathe (I imagine) is freeing the mind and the body. Love the title of the poem and a nod to Steinbeck’s pickup!
Your need, longing for retirement is palpable here. Learning how to breathe again. I’m still trying to relax and not feel guilty about it. Retirement freedom takes time, even after you stop.
Rocinante is a ship in the series The Expanse. Of course, I now know, it is a literary reference. Ha. We are watching a lot of TV in the evenings this year.
And your poem, open roads are waiting for you, my friend. Yes.
Sarah
and you deserve every second of it…here’s to all the great things to come!
Kim, yes! Embracing all the blessings coming your way. We will exhale together! 💛💛
Kim, I can attest that retirement is like learning to breathe again! I didn’t realize how I’d been holding my breath for the last few years. I love how this poem shows your desire to embrace the open road.
Kim, what a wonderful, celebratory poem! I know your spirit will soar once you’ve hit the open road. “learning how to breathe” is such a perfect end! Love it!
Kim,
Im ready for you to have your Steinbeck/Kerouac/Heast-Moon moment. I’m ready to travel along with you in freedom road.
Kim, this is a celebration of the next chapter ready to “explore Open Roads of America.” You are going to have lots to write about – your journey!
Kim, I hope all of these things for you when freedom (retirement) comes in August!
I didn’t quite follow directions (as usual)
Kevin
An old battered clarinet
from the dump heap
of discards sits broken
with possibilities
Mangled springs,
rotted pads, and
twisted keys;
yet, something there
still sings
A new turn
remakes a thing, anew,
but always, it requires
deft hands and
an understanding of song
“Sits broken/with possibilities” speaks volumes to me…a song that sings in my own head nearly every day. Thank you always for your musical and insightful perspective, Kevin.
broken with possibilities is perfect!
Kevin, “sits broken with possibilities” is such a great way to think about new beginnings. Your final stanza beautifully explains what’s needed to realize those possibilities.
Your imagery once again shows me without telling the life of a clarinet. I hope you (or some expert you know) can get it to sing again.
This sounds like a returning-to piem to me, Kevin. A new turn. Remake a thing. Yep.
Loving the language play today: dump heap of discards, mangled springs, (still sings…remakes a thing….song). This was wonderful to read out loud.
Kevin,
Another musical delight! I feel like this applies to how I’m feeling lately:
All we need is the right person to come along and understand our songs. 💙