I went a bit dark with Laura Purdie Salas’s 15 Words or Less Poetry prompt this week. She shared a picture of an adorable penguin sugar cookie:
Photo credit to Laura Purdie Salas
Reminded of the catastrophic penguin breeding colony collapse I read about this past fall (here), I responded with this:
In Antarctica…
Tens of thousands
of Adélie chicks
starve and perish
while we enjoy
our frosted cookies
M. Hogan (c) 2018
Nix the comfort zone 
Molly, I couldn’t respond Thursday morning because I was still shaken by the students’ voices from Florida. You showed that I could’ve gone in a different direction with the penguin cookie. I am heartbroken about their plight.
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It’s hard to find sweetness in life amidst such darkness–yet it’s so important to do.
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Your words made me stop and think, really think. I don’t think of your poem as dark but rather truthful.
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