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Gifts

In my latest summer adventure, I traveled to Silver Spring, Maryland to meet up with my writing group, The Inklings. I’ve been writing with this group for around 10 years and had met several, but not all of them, prior to this gathering. We had talked about getting together for years, and we finally did it! It was such a wonderful, rich experience, and one that I’m still processing.

As I write this, I’m a bit further north and east in Maryland, having taken a detour on the way home to visit with another friend. I’m seated at a table overlooking a yard filled with tall trees and glowing lushly green. It slopes down to tidy raised bed gardens and a dock that stretches out to a tidal river. Every so often an egret flies by or a heron stops to wade among the shallows. A small flock of geese flies overhead. My friend points to a migrating silvery trail at the edge of the river. “It’s probably a muskrat,” she says.

As she and her husband vanish to complete some necessary work, I watch the hummingbirds dip and dive at the feeders. I admire the potted porch plants so carefully tended. My eyes follow their tendrils and waving leaves as they wind up lines of twine, skyward bound.

The house is silent.

Gifts

Morning’s silence wraps around me
like a blanket, or an embrace.

A leaf drifts down from a tree
following shifting air currents
meandering
until it comes to rest
on the damp grass drenched
with yesterday’s rains.

The breeze kicks up now and again
sketching ripples on the tidal water
that ebbs and flows
along its own journey
within guiding banks

The quiet grounds me
The whirr and buzz of recent days
subsides
everything shifts
and settles within me
potential nourishment
for some future blossoming

©Molly Hogan

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Sister Time

Ever since our father died, my three sisters and I have been working at getting together once a year. We’re far flung (Ohio, NY, South Carolina and Maine), so there is indeed effort involved. Last year everyone came to my house for my child’s wedding celebration. In 2024 we met for a long weekend in Seneca Falls. This year we traveled to my sister Ellen’s husband’s family house in Martha’s Vineyard. After some initial travel hiccups, we were finally all together again. We spent five days there. We talked. We walked. We went into the different towns and browsed and shopped. We hung out at the beach. We ate a lot (with an emphasis on chocolate and popcorn). We reminisced and we laughed. Above all, we just thoroughly enjoyed being four sisters together.

Now our time was over and, other than Ellen, who was extending her time there, we were all heading back to our respective homes. As I drove north toward Maine, texts with updates kept pinging in periodically. I listened to Siri read them:

And then later on…

I imagined each of us as small dots with a flight path, all starting out from Martha’s Vineyard. Although one dot remained temporarily in Martha’s Vineyard, the rest of us were arcing out and farther and farther away from each other. It made me not quite sad, but definitely melancholy. I was ready to be home, but not yet ready to be away from my sisters.

It struck me as I was writing this, that in a much more significant sense, we really did all start out in one place and then journeyed away. We share a common origin and all the stories and memories that come along with it. Now we have added yet another common point and more memories to share.

I’m so thankful.

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PF: A Summer of Travel

This summer has been, and will continue to be, a summer of travel. Three days after school vacation began, we were off for about 2 1/2 weeks of travel in Iceland and Wales. As I write this post, I’m about an hour away from leaving for Martha’s Vineyard to spend time with my sisters. (I’m crossing my fingers that I can figure out the tech to pre-schedule publishing this and then remember to link up as well!)

I spend a lot of time taking pictures when I travel. (Sorry, travel companions! Thanks for your patience!) Once I’m home again, I love to look back through the pictures and relive the experiences. Sometimes I’m inspired to create image poems, or in this case, quasi “travelku”.

amidst the chaos
of craggy volcanic rock
lupines blaze

@Molly Hogan

Creating image poems spills over into daily life. They’re a bit addictive!

garden weather:
huge cumulous clusters drift
across a green sky

@Molly Hogan

Finally, I’ve found myself, again and again, feeling so fortunate that my travel ends with the pleasure of home.

after the journey
unpacking the gifts
of coming home

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Tanita S. Davis. Click on over to find some poetry to savor! I’ll be late to read and comment, but will swing around once I’m back home again.

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You know you’ve been married a long time when…

Summer offers time for morning walks when the sun is warm, but not yet hot, and the sweet smell of growing things fills the air. We’ve been taking advantage of bright mornings and my open schedule to walk down our road together in the morning before Kurt works.

“Hold on a second,” Kurt said coming to a sudden halt on one recent walk. “You have a long white hair on your chin.”

I immediately stopped, aghast. “What!? But I’m so vigilant!”

“Well, it is hard to see when it’s white,” he commented matter-of-factly.

He then reached over and turned my head to the side. Without asking, he zoomed in and pulled at the hair with his fingers. Once. Twice.

“You know,” he commented as he labored, “we probably look like chimps grooming at the side of the road.”

I laughed and then asked the critical question, “But can you get it?” I tilted my head for better access.

He pulled one more time and ta-da! The offending hair was removed. Victory!

“I can’t believe it,” I said, looking at the half-inch hair within his pincer grip. “I check every single day and inevitably I miss one. I mean, how long has this one even been growing! And also, how did you even do that with just your fingers!?” I eyed him with new respect.

He shrugged and tossed the miscreant filament to the wind. We continued on our walk, settling back in to enjoying the beautiful day and our time together.

And somehow, after that, I felt just a hair lighter.

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Reality Settles Back In

I spent the past 2 1/2 weeks traveling in Iceland and Wales We returned home late on Saturday night and have been gradually settling back in. I love traveling and appreciate how it shakes up my complacency. Traveling to new places teaches me so much. It expands my thinking and also changes how I see my own world when I return. It helps me imagine possibilities and alternatives.

Yesterday morning I looked through my photos while sitting in my own chair in my own living room. I was happy to be home and not living out of a suitcase, but already felt our travel experiences shifting into the surreal. Did we really go there? Did we see that? Did we do that?

Everywhere we traveled, people were friendly and helpful to us. “Where are you from?” they’d ask, and our response was always the same. “We’re from Maine in the States, and we’re really sorry.” Without exception, they said that everyone they met from America said the same thing.

When we were in Iceland on a walking tour of Reykjavik, our guide said to us, “There is only one place in Iceland where you will see armed guards. Where do you think that is?”

“The bank,” someone called out.

“The airport?” I guessed.

“No,” he replied. “At the American Embassy.”

Sit with that for a while.

One day, after our standard response, a Welch woman asked us, “How did this happen?”

We didn’t even begin to know how to answer.

“Please,” she said, “You have to do better.”

Now, back home again, travel-weary and enriched, I scroll through the photos, selecting which ones to share. How can I capture all that we saw and experienced and thought as we wandered through these new landscapes? Geothermal fields, geysers, lupines, puffins, majestic cliffs, hedge rows, castles, mountains, etc!

Then the news came through: ICE agents had shot a man in Biddeford, Maine.

Biddeford, Maine is where I attended UNE for my teaching certification. It’s where I sometimes go to get amazing bagels. It’s where I travel to look for snowy owls in the winter, and it’s been known to have some interesting ice formations on the river. Now it’s known as the newest spot where ICE agents have murdered someone. The man, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, died. He was murdered. His child was secure in her carseat in the backseat. He wasn’t even the man they were looking for. He was here, legally, heading to work. Apparently his last words were, “I tried to stop.”

I wish I could say this is what feels surreal, but it feels all too real.

My God. We have to do better.

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Strawberry Picking

We get there shortly after 7 am and already the fields are dotted with enthusiastic pickers. The sky arcs blue overhead and birds call from the surrounding trees. After a quick stop to ask where we should pick, we head over to a likely spot. Soon we are squatting between rows of berries. Our feet sink into the soft earth. I squat and reach in between the leaves, brushing them back and forth searching for sweet, red strawberries.

“I always think of Jamberry when I’m picking,” I comment to Kurt soon after we start, “but I can never remember how it goes.”

We throw out a few guesses at lines, in fits and starts, trying to latch on to the rhythm…

“Boomberry! Zoomberry!”

“What a jam jamboree!”

We never do find it, but enjoy the effort and sharing the attached memories of long ago book reading and berry picking with our children.

Berry picking is as much about picking and sharing memories as it is about picking strawberries. It’s sort of Zen–quiet, voices murmuring, the soft thunk of berries into our containers, occasional laughter, bird calls. The sun warm on our shoulders. Soon, with our hands busy, our minds still. We lapse into comfortable silence. Once in a while, we say something profound, like:

“Oh, here’s a beauty!”

or “Look! This one’s the Queen Strawberry!”

Soon my hands and wrists are drenched with the chill of morning dew. Every so often I pick a strawberry that is already warm from the sun. A little solar powered juice factory. The contrast between cool, dew-soaked hands and the warm flesh of the berry, captivates me. I let these berries linger in my palm for a moment. Roll them back and forth, savoring their gentle heat. I mention this to Kurt.

“I feel a blog post coming on,” he says.

I laugh.

He knows me well.

After we get home, I make batch after batch of strawberry rhubarb jam. Lulled by the sun and the good vibes, we overpicked. It’s a good problem to have.

Later that afternoon, when I’m holding my four-month old grandson, I lean in close to him and whisper, “And when you’re bigger, I’m going to take you strawberry picking and we’re going to make jam!”

And the next day, I label all the lids and put the cooled jam jars into the pantry cupboard. Each one contains a feast of sweet berries and memories, and the promise of more to come.

I make a mental note to look for our copy of Jamberry, or to order a new one.

I’ll be needing it.

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PF: Inklings Challenge

This month’s Inklings challenge was from Mary Lee. She asked us to find a comment on one of our blog posts and to fashion a poem from it. I loved this idea, and immediately began considering comments as seeds for poems. Such fertile ground! In the end, I opted to use part of a comment that Patricia Franz made on one of my posts. She wrote: “Camera in tow, I stop for moss, for light; this morning it was antelope bitterbrush, its soft, shy yellow flower.” I chose to spin off the beginning of her line.

As day breaks

I stop for moss, for light;
this morning it was plum blossoms
with petals like pale butterflies
aflutter on branches
lit by rising sun

I lean in
keen to focus
on the blossoms so clear
delicately etched
across a canvas
of tender verdant leaves

light scatters
the day cracks open
but gently
like a chrysalis
splitting
or a soft exhale
after one’s breath
has been held
just a bit
too long 

©Molly Hogan

If you’re interested in reading what the other Inklings did, check out their sites here:

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche (I believe she’s on a family jaunt and opting out this month, but you won’t regret stopping by her site anyway!)
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Mona Voekel at her blog.

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PF: Pantoum

There aren’t many things that land in my Inbox and that I read consistently, but Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Sunday post is one of them. This week he announced it was Pantoum Sunday and invited readers to join in and write a pantoum. He offers a wonderfully accessible template, which I’ve used before. This past weekend he added prompts for each line. If you’re interested, you can read more here. I played around with the prompt and wrote two pantoums. Both are still drafty, but here’s one of them:

Pantoum

Today is all golden tree tops and turbulent clouds
and I find myself wishing it away
Although yesterday I watched storm clouds mass and spit
As I write, I try to find my way to the core

Still, I find myself wishing it away
When I was younger, I tried so hard to fly
Now I write to find my way to the core 
I didn’t realize that flight insists on a landing

When I was younger I tried so hard to fly
but my feet never left the ground
and I didn’t realize that flight insists on a landing
though once I had a dream that I soared

Anyway my feet remain grounded and
yesterday I watched storm clouds mass and spit
and remembered I once had a dream that I soared
Today is all golden tree tops and turbulent clouds

©Molly Hogan, draft

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Mary Lee Hahn at her blog, A(nother) Year of Reading.

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Name That Tune

Kurt, my husband, loves music and is appalled by my pervasive inability to name songs and artists. So, he likes to torture me, or at least remind me of my weakness.

“I’ll give you $20 if you can tell me who sings this song,” he’ll say. (Well, that’s what he used to say. Recently (maybe it’s the economy?), he’s been omitting the cash offer.)

As I’ve told him many, many times, I do not enjoy this game of his. It makes me feel frustrated and incompetent.

So, imagine my delight when my school started a sort of “Name that Tune” Fridays this year. They play a snippet of a song over the PA system before announcements. The winner is the first one to e-mail the Assistant Principal with the title of the song and name of the artist. Every Friday, as I fight to hide my negative feelings about this whole weekly triggering experience, my students clamor for me to get ready. I’m pretty sure they are as disillusioned in my abilities by now as Kurt is, but they’re much more optimistic. (Delusional? Nicer?)

“Are you ready, Mrs. Hogan!?”

“You might get it this time!”

I would say that 80% of the time I’ve never heard the song, or at least don’t remember doing so. The remaining times I might recognize it, but I don’t know either the title or artist or both. Recently, the office has begun sharing the winner’s name and the song and title in a follow up e-mail. As you might guess, my name has yet to appear. But, then, there was one recent Friday…

The warning came for teachers to get ready. I sighed and headed over to my computer, pasting a fake enthusiastic smile on my face. Music soon filled the room. The kids immediately abandoned their morning work and got up to dance.

“Oh! Wait! I know this one!” I said, cocking my head and thinking hard.

My students started jumped up and down in excitement, calling out encouragement and some random guesses.

Quickly, I typed in the song name, then hesitated…Ugh! Who sings this!? Who sings this!?…Inspiration struck and I tapped at the keyboard and sent:

“Roar, Katy Perry “

Yes! I did it!

The kids and I celebrated my potential win with a few dance moves, pondering aloud what the prize might be. All of us were a bit dazzled by the fact that I actually knew the song! Then we (sort of) settled back into the morning routines and got on with our day.

I left work early that day to head to Boston, and forgot to check my e-mail. On the way south I couldn’t help but wonder, Was I the first to respond? Did I win this time? I felt pretty good about my chances, but since I don’t have my work e-mail on my phone, I couldn’t check.

Sunday night as I prepped for the coming week, I opened up my work computer. There was the e-mail from the office! Feeling excited, I clicked to open it:

“Friday’s song: Sara Bareilles, Brave”

Wait! What?

I read it again. And again. Then it sunk in, and I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

As you might have guessed by now, my name still has not appeared on the Winner’s List.

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PF: Gossip at the fence

I never know what will catch my eye when I’m out and about, but overall, I’m much more inclined to take photographs of natural images. In fact, I typically go out of my way to avoid people, buildings, and/or man-made objects. I’ve been known to gripe about people ruining my photo opportunities. (This does not always endear me to friends and family! lol ) There are always exceptions though.

On a long ago drive, this bike and fence caught my eye, and I pulled over to take a picture. (How I’ve managed not to get into multiple car accidents while gawking out the window at birds, scenery, etc, is beyond me!) Recently, when I was rummaging through photos, to curate my gallery show, I revisited this picture. I still loved the lines and the weathered look of the fence and the bike and the way they complemented each other. Looking at the photo again inspired me to write a poem to go along with it, and ultimately, I opted to include both in the show. The show comes down this afternoon, so I’m highlighting this pairing to mark the occasion.

Gossip at the Fence

Bike leans in
shares stories
of long ago wild rides
and windblown trails
of laughter

©Molly Hogan

The Poetry Friday Roundup this week is hosted by Carol L. at her blog.