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.


Molly, what a gorgeous poem to begin my morning with! Those plum blossom butterfly wings are perfect. And, you land the poem perfectly on the exhale. Well done.
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I love the shape of your poem — like breathing in, holding your breath to focus, taking another sip of air, then that long slow exhale.
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