Author Archives

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Taken for a Ride

I’m easing away from the stop sign, turning right onto the main road, when I see it. The car is squatting in a shadowed lay-by, ready to pounce. My heart thumps.

Did I come to a complete stop?

I thhhhhinnnnnk so. I’m not 100% sure. I drive the short distance to my next turn turn, flick on my blinker and glance in the rear view mirror.

Oh, crap! It’s pulling out.

I watch it pull onto the main road as I make my turn off of it and proceed down the hill. I keep one eye on the road ahead and another behind me.

Is it turning onto this road?

My breath hitches.

Please no please no please no!
Oh, no! Yes! It is! But, there are no flashing lights. At least not yet.

My pulse skitters.

Am I going to get a ticket? Oh, no! What will that do to my insurance rates?

I eye the speedometer, keeping it right at 35 mph. I drive onward. There are still no flashing lights, but I feel its presence behind me like a nemesis.

Maybe they’re running my plates. Will it show that I’ve never had a moving violation? Ever! In more than 40 years of driving! Shouldn’t that count for something?

I continue driving, trying to talk myself off the ledge of my incipient free fall into panic, keeping my speed right at the limit.

There’s nothing you can do now. If you get a ticket, you get a ticket. It’s not the end of the world.

I wrest my eyes from the ominous headlights behind me and try to keep them on the road ahead…when they’re aren’t glued to the speedometer.

Maybe I should turn off this road just to see if it follows…

A crossroads is up ahead.

Will it turn off? Should I?

I keep on driving. I hold my breath, and pass the turn, continuing on my regular route.

Is it slowing? Maybe just a little? Yes! Yes! It is! And the blinker’s on. It’s turning!!!

I watch it start to turn down the road that leads away from me.

Immediate relief seeps through my body. My hands loosen their death grip on the steering wheel. I take a deep breath.

Phew!

I glance back to ensure that it’s well and truly on its way. But wait…what?!

My foot lifts off the gas. I look behind me again, able now to see the full silhouette of the car. The silhouette that does not look like a police car… Not At All.

My mind whirls.

Wait, was that even a police car? Or was I mistaken all along?

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PF: In Vino Veritas

In vino veritas

My relationship to poetry
is much like mine to wine
I don’t know the terminology
but I know what I like
what flows into me
with soft notes of currant
or spicy pepper
subtle pleasures that
have me sipping more
and slipping into giddy

Once someone talked to me
about the poetic use of anaphora
and I momentarily pictured 
elegant Greek vases
crusted in time
holders of sweet, secret ambrosia…

Was I so wrong?

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Carol Varsalona at her blog, Beyond Literacy Link.

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Poetry Friday: Secrets

For the past several years I’ve enjoyed the creative prompts for the New Year Poetry Challenge (NYPC) from the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center. Each day from mid-December to mid-January, they offer up an original and rich prompt, encouraging you to take it in any direction you’d like. You even have the option to send in one poem to be considered for entry in their annual NYPC chapbook. This year I shared the first ten prompts with my writing group, and Catherine Flynn liked one so much that she chose it for our Inklings challenge. The theme: Secrets. The task: “Write a poem about secrets——family, community/societal, governmental, personal, etc.”

Way back in December, when I first responded to this prompt in my notebook, I was also working on Heidi Mordhorst’s fabulous Yuletide prompts, one of which was to “try to write about effort”. These two prompts combined into this poem:

This pen holds secrets

You can tell by the way
it resists the pull of paper
how you have to exert force
to mark the page
how the ink bleeds and blots
and each letter requires
just a bit more effort
so that your hand aches
as the weight of those secrets
coagulates
until you
and the pen
come to
a stuttering
silent
stop.

©Molly Hogan

This week Mary Lee Hahn hosts the Poetry Friday Roundup at her blog, A(nother) Year of Reading. She shares her response to this prompt there. To check out what the other Inklings did with this prompt, go to the links below:

Catherine Flynn
Linda Mitchell
Heidi Mordhorst
Margaret Simon

And then, just because everyone should listen to this song more frequently…

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Winter Gift

Everything was coated in thick blankets of white. The sky was quilted grey but, with the occasional thinning of clouds, it periodically shone opalescent. Winter-bare trees lifted branches limned with white, while pine boughs hung heavy yet somehow graceful with their snowy burden. Every so often a gust of wind lifted a branch or brushed two together, and a small powdery flurry shimmered and showered to the ground. It was mesmerizing.

I was driving to school after an unexpected and very welcome two-hour delay. The scenery at home had tempted me into a little bit of morning photography, so I was running a bit late. As I watched the flurries and looked at the landscape around me, I found myself thinking of Frost’s poem “A Dust of Snow”. I started to say it out loud.

The way a crow
shook down on me
the dust of snow
from a hemlock tree…

I stopped there.

What was the next line? Something about mood… 

But try as I might, I could only fully recall those first few lines and the last two “and saved some part/of a day I had rued”. I repeated the first four lines again, hoping to jar out the missing few lines. It didn’t work… but I didn’t really mind. It was a not-minding kind of morning. I just drove along, reveling in the gorgeous morning around me, feeling my spirits lift at one beautiful scene after another.

Coming around a corner, I had to slow down behind a line-up of cars. Wondering at the delay, I looked up ahead to see the tell-tale flashing lights of a school bus. Most mornings I would bemoan my fate at that sight, feeling the need to get to school, to get working. To hurry.

Not this morning.

This morning my smile grew, and I settled in to enjoy the slower ride through the winter wonderland.

What a gift!

Looking back up my driveway before heading off to school

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Why I Take Pictures 


I always look forward to writing in response to Ethical ELA's monthly prompts, even though I generally keep my responses in my notebook. One day last week Dave Wooley offered up a prompt. He invited people to use Leah Kindler's "Why I Write Poetry" as a mentor and respond with a list poem using anaphora (which is, according to Merriam-Webster, not a Greek vase ;), but instead "a word or expression...repeated at the beginning of a number of sentences, clauses, or phrases.")

If you know me or follow my blog, you know that I love to take pictures and often share them on Facebook. It's become an essential part of my world. It seemed natural to ponder why I take photographs.

Why I Take Pictures 
(after Leah Kindler and Major Jackson)

Because each dawn is a promise
Because it slows me down from rushrushrush 
	to hushhushhush
Because it helps me to lose
   and find myself, simultaneously
Because when I switch my perspective
	new worlds are unveiled
Because I can escape the heaviness of today 
	through the portal of a lens
Because there’s magic in watching a heron
	unfold its wings and rise from the silent marsh
Because sometimes deep in the core 
   of a pile of haphazardly heaped snow
	a blue heart glows
Because the sky is a living canvas as is the marsh
	as is the forest as is each individual tree
Because a reflection reflects, and the birds, oh the birds!
Because time ceases to matter
Because sometimes I can capture what I see	
	and what I feel 
   and then transcend both
Because even when my camera is not in my hand, 
	it’s tuned me to resonate 
   to the exquisite 
Because even when my breath exhales into frost and my fingers
	bone-ache with cold,
	joy flutters and takes flight.

©Molly Hogan, draft

Yesterday morning I was trying to be productive and take advantage of a two-hour delay, but then I saw the ice outside, and the flocks of robins, and before I knew it, I was out the door and taking pictures...in my slippers!

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is with Susan Thomsen at her blog, Chicken Spaghetti.

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And on a weeknight!?

I talked to my sister on the drive home from work last night. We chatted about this and that, sharing what we’d been up to, what was going on. As I pulled in the driveway, I said to her, “Well, I’ve got to go. Kurt and I have a hot date tonight. We’re going to get our passport photos taken!” She laughed and we said our goodbyes.

After some quick primping (ha!), Kurt and I were ready to go to Staples, for our exciting photo session. I grabbed two library books as we walked out the door, announcing, “Let’s stop at the library on the way and return these.”

Within about ten minutes, we were at the library.

“If you’re just dropping those off,” Kurt said, “I’ll wait here in the car.”

“Let’s both go in,” I suggested. “They’re got the Joy of the Arts show on display right now. We can check it out.”

Kurt was amenable, so after I dropped off the books, we wandered into the adjacent gallery. We admired intricate drawings, textile pieces, oil paintings, watercolors and more. Over and over again I was impressed by the high quality of the work. There are so many talented people in this world! At one point I stopped in my tracks, amazed by a detailed pencil drawing of a dog’s head. I had thought it was a photograph. It was exquisitely rendered, only the head of a white furred dog, emerging from a white canvas with warm, inquisitive brown eyes. It was somehow lively and ghostly at the same time. Amazing!

After voting for our favorites, we left to head to Staples, and quickly found ourselves in front of the camera.

“No smiling,” the clerk advised. “And you need to take your glasses off.”

Five or so minutes later, we had our photos and were heading out the door. (In case you’re wondering, my photo is pretty appalling. My glasses hide a multitude of sins, not to mention two red spots where they rest all day long on my nose. Not smiling and a winter-dull complexion don’t add much to the mix. Glancing at the picture, before quickly tucking it away, I found myself wishing I’d come for my photo before a long day’s work, when I, perhaps, looked a little less like a cadaver. Oh well.)

Kurt and I walked out into the parking lot together.

“So, where are we going to go out to eat?” he asked, half-joking, as we got into the car.

We debated going home or eating out, and almost before we knew it, we were somehow ensconced in a local pizza spot and ordering dinner. And all this on a Monday night!

On the way home, I commented, “Wow, this really did become a date night! We headed out for passport photos, but ended up going to an art show and out for dinner.”

He replied, “It’s almost as good as our date night Friday, when we go grocery shopping together!”

We are definitely on an upward trajectory! Who knows what might happen next week!?

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Sucker Punched

Grief’s a funny thing. You’re going along just fine, and then suddenly you get…

Sucker Punched

Clear skies and sunshine
on the drive to work.
Like a bolt from the blue
the radio host jokingly refers
to “skivvies” and
my heart is skewered.
This is such a “you word”
I breathe deeply
try to regain my balance…

But I miss you, Dad.

©Molly Hogan

This poem feels a bit private, like something to keep in my notebook, but I’m trying to recommit to regularly participating in PF and also to sharing things that feel a bit more vulnerable. So, here it is.

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Robyn Hood Black at her blog, Life on the Deckle Edge. She’s sharing a wonderful post about all things tea-related. Be sure to stop by!

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Some Bedroom Humor

We keep our bedroom temperature on the chilly side in the winter. “How chilly?” you ask. Very-old-not-well-insulated-house-in-Maine-and-don’t-want-to-use-all-our-money-on-oil-bills chilly. Translation? Around 57-58˚ F. We actually like it that way. (Well, at least we do once we’ve warmed up under the covers.)

Both of us always read before going to sleep. We each have a book light so that whoever stays up later doesn’t keep the other one awake with a bedside lamp. At least theoretically. Most nights I tend to stay up a little later. Sometimes a lot later. Sometimes that doesn’t go over so well.

In mid-winter the temperature in our room inspires me to retreat to long-ago days and create a sort of reading tent under the covers. This works for me as it keeps me warm, and it also avoids most of the grumpy “Turn out your light and go to sleep” comments from the man trying to sleep beside me (aka Kurt).

One recent evening I came up to bed and saw that Kurt already had his light off. “You know,” I commented, as I settled in my little reading cave with my book and light in hand, “You’re lucky I like to read under the covers.”

There was a slight pause. Then he replied, “Well… you’re lucky I don’t have an intestinal disorder.”

He can still make me laugh after all these years.

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Cheerios with Kooser and Harrison

A month or two ago, I made a deliberate change to my morning routine. While enjoying my regular bowl of cereal and my last few moments at home before heading to school, I stopped looking at my phone and playing word games. Instead, I chose to use that time to read. I didn’t want to continue reading my “bedtime” book in the morning, but instead wanted to dip into books that lent themselves to short spans of reading.

The first book I read this way was “Do Interesting-Notice. Collect. Share.” by Russell Davies. It’s full of short chapters and all sorts of rich thoughts about creativity. “Interesting isn’t a personality, it’s a decision. Don’t hunt for diamonds. Get fascinated by pebbles.” It was delightful to nibble at a few chapters each morning.

Now I’ve moved on to read “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry” by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison. It’s comprised of short poems written back and forth between those two men. It’s a joy to read as they explore friendship, nature, aging, and more. Their poems are insightful, irreverent, humorous, poignant and wise. I love that none of the poems are attributed so you can just lose yourself in the flow of their exchange. Here are a few of my favorites: 

All I want to be
is a thousand blackbirds 
bursting from a tree, 
seeding the sky.

-------------
At the tip of memory's 
great funnel-cloud 
is the nib of a pen.

--------------
The moon put her hand
over my mouth and told me
to shut up and watch. 

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What if everyone you've loved
were still alive? 
That's the province 
of the young, who don't know it. 

--------------
The hay in the loft
misses the night sky,
so the old roof
leaks a few stars.


It was so hard to stop sharing favorites! What a treasure of a book! My copy is fluttering with so many sticky notes marking different poems, that I'm pretty sure if a breeze came through, it could take flight. Or maybe it already has.

I'd love to know if you have any books that might fit well with my new morning routine. Any suggestions?

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Tracey Kiff-Judson at her blog. If you’re a Monopoly fan, you definitely need to stop by and check out her post!

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There’s a Vortex In My Bed

It’s only been two days so far, but it’s been really tough getting out of bed this week. Yesterday morning I woke through a haze to blindly smack at my blaring alarm clock. The words “there’s a vortex in my bed” popped into mind as I tried to force myself up and out of bed. Here’s the drafty poem that happened in my notebook a little bit later:

There’s a Vortex in My Bed

No matter how I struggle
to arise and start my day
I can’t escape the blankets
or their ally, the duvet

They act like mini-twisters
wrapping tightly ‘round my limbs
The mattress pad’s complicit,
working hard to suck me in

The pillows are colluding
as they mound around my head
I’ve clearly lost this battle!
I just can’t get out of bed!

©Molly Hogan