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Hay Bales

On a humid August morning, the sun hangs low and heavy, and coiled bales of hay are strewn across the field. Mounded haystacks transform the landscape as if they’re marking summer’s end, or at least the impending onset of autumn. The free flowing fields are a thing of the past. What once was wind-swept grass and flowers is now banded together and contained, destined to be fodder for farmyard creatures in the coming months. It makes me smile me to imagine their surprise as they bite into a remnant of clover, a small burst of sweetness amidst the hay. Are black eyed Susans bitter or sweet? Queen Anne’s lace? Bitter or sweet, all the tender grasses and blossoms, once buoyant and bright, are now dried and tucked away.

As fall speeds toward me, I feel a bit like that about my summer. It’s like I’m bundling up all my experiences, those bright sweet spots of summer, and neatly tucking them away. As if I’m counting on them to sustain me and nourish me through the coming months. Maybe I am.

But even as summer’s remnants are gathered and bound, the air is filled with the sweet smell of harvested fields, and fruit burgeons in the trees, promising more to come. In the field beside my house, the goldenrod flourishes, bold and gold, in undulating waves. I remind myself that each ending contains a beginning. So, even as I hold the fading season close, I open to the new one. Summer is fading but autumn holds its own rich rewards.

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Poetry Friday is here!

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I’m so glad you’re stopping by, and I’m looking forward to enjoying the bounty of posts and poetry over the weekend. Don’t forget to add your link at the end of the post!

Last night I was lucky enough to attend “Words that Sing and Soar: The Joy of Words in Poetry,” a workshop with Georgia Heard and Irene Latham. What a wonderful evening! I came away high on words, with all sorts of tips and prompts and creative buzzings. During the workshop both Georgia and Irene mentioned Nikki Grimes and her word play exercise. As I’ve been wallowing in the summertime joy of procrastinating without serious ramifications, I had an opportunistic eye out for a possible Poetry Friday post (because yes, I had not written anything yet). Revisiting wordplay poems and sharing the draft I’d created sounded perfect. (Phew!)

The first time I became aware of this wordplay exercise was when I read Michelle Barnes’ interview with Nikki Grimes on This Little Ditty. The prompt was to choose a concrete word (ball, pumpkin, pen, etc.) and sit with it for a while, really thinking about it. As Nikki Grimes wrote, “When I talk about wordplay, I’m talking about studying a word from top to bottom, and inside out, considering every aspect of the word:  What it looks like, sounds like, feels like.  What it does, how it’s used, etc.  The idea is to bring all of your senses into the act. ” While I didn’t submit anything to Michelle’s challenge at the time, the Poetry Pals later used this prompt and that inspired me to play around with an Inktober word “splat” in a word play poem (here).

Last night Georgia referred back to Nikki Grimes’ exercise. She asked us to choose a word from a short list of words, and to complete the wordplay exercise with that chosen word. To put a spin on the original prompt, the words she provided were not concrete items but small words with many meanings. I chose the word “still,” which is one that know I use a lot in my poetry. So, it felt right to sit and spend some more thoughtful time with “still”.

Still

Still is a hidden-depths word
a quiet wind-bereft word
a word of absence 
and potential

A generous word,
still slows my beating heart,
lets the leaves rest
and paints reflections on the lake
It is the space between the ripples

Still is a word that perseveres
pushing up and through
a steadfast word
a stick-to-it word

Still purifies and distills
It’s a word of change
with notes of optimism
an “and-yet-maybe…” word
Hope flows
from still

©Molly Hogan, draft

To be honest, I wish I were still able to work on this poem, as it is still evolving. There are so many facets to “still”!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party. Click here to enter.

PS On a side note, speaking of Georgia Heard, if you haven’t yet subscribed to her monthly Heartbeats, I strongly encourage you to do so! It’s fabulous!

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Reality Check

“You know, you don’t have too much time before you go back,” my husband commented this weekend.

“I’ve got lots of time! I’ve got like three weeks!” I protested.

He looked at me. “Today’s the 9th. Tomorrow’s the 10th. Two weeks from then is the 24th. Don’t you go back the last week of August?”

“Um….Yes,” I replied hesitantly.

“Well,” he said, “That’s in about two weeks. “

“But…” My mind raced. How could that be!? I was stunned. I redid the math (several times). Every time the answer was the same. Dang it! He was 100% right.

“I don’t think I’m talking to you anymore,” I announced.

To be honest, I am not dreading school. I’m actually looking forward to meeting my new students and to seeing friends and colleagues. I’m just not ready to up the pace. After returning home from my final summer trip last week (I was traveling or away 29 days this summer–rich, rewarding and BUSY!), I’ve been enjoying slowing down, lingering, putzing, and generally being wildly inefficient. Days with nothing scheduled on my calendar are like unwrapped gifts. I’m actually avoiding making plans, even when they might be something I’d like to do. But now that my husband dropped that bombshell, I’m having to slowly adjust to the idea that school actually does begin in two weeks. Not three weeks. Two.

It’s going to be fine.

I’ll be ready.

Maybe I’ll even be talking to my husband again by then! lol

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Poetry Friday: Maps and Journeys

This month it was my turn to pose a challenge for the Inklings. I was navigating my way through Iceland and Wales while trying to come up with something, so my mind naturally turned toward maps and journeys. My prompt, in a nutshell, was this, “Write a poem about maps or travel or journeys, real or imagined.” Then I promptly got back to engaging with GPS and real maps.

One of the highlights of this summer was my trip to meet up with the Inklings. In person! Like in real life! It took some doing (and extraordinary organizational skills on Heidi’s part), but after years and years of Google Meet and Zoom meetings, we finally managed to get together. It was such a rich and rewarding time! I thought I’d probably write about that journey. But just when you think you know where you’re going, life has a way of throwing a curveball. So, here’s what I came up with this morning.

Searching for a Road Map

if only life
included
its own key

to translate
each icon
each color

to denote
the detours
the dead end

©Molly Hogan

I also played around with a triolet, using a collage background I created during our Inklings retreat (thanks, Linda!).

Laying Down a Road Map

Despite our best intentions
our journey carves its own way.
We stray from the map’s imagined dimensions,
despite our best intentions.
There are detours, circumventions.
As today becomes yesterday,
despite our best intentions
our journey carves its own way.

©Molly Hogan

If you want to see what the other Inklings have done with this prompt, click on the links below:

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche 
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Ruth at her blog, There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.

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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.