Author Archives

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Time. Layers. Change.

I turn the last page and set down the book. “North Woods” by Daniel Mason. My thoughts whirl, thinking about the story, or more accurately, the interwoven stories threaded throughout. I ponder time, layers, connections. Think about change. About humans and nature. I read again the NPR review on the back cover: “Gorgeous… a tale of ephemerality and succession, of the way time accrues in layers, like sedimentary soil.” My mind wanders back over all the layers of the book. The interconnected tissue of it all. The strata. This one will stay with me, I think.

Done with reading, I turn to chores. I pull out the old cardboard box that I took from my dad’s house after his death. On it is a label Black, Starr & Gorham, Fifth Avenue, New York. Within it are the components of a three-layer glass and silver tiered dessert stand. What is its story?

I suspect it was a wedding gift for my parents, though I’ll never know. There’s no one to ask now. But the box has been sitting in my closet, neatly tucked away for several years now. I am relatively certain that it was never used. The layers of confetti-ed yellowing paper packaging seem intact. I’m not even sure why I took it with me when we cleaned out the house. About a week ago, though, I realized I might be able to polish it up and use it at the upcoming baby shower for our first grandchild. My parents’ great-grandchild. I liked that idea. I felt the tug of a connection.

Now, I open the box and pull out the pieces. The silver rims are dark with tarnish. The patina of age. A visible record of time’s passing. I take a silver polishing cloth and begin to rub gently. The dark transfers to the cloth. Bit by bit, glowing silver emerges from time’s ravages. I gently work the cloth over and over the dingy surface. I slow down, finding the task deeply soothing. I think about the book again. About the past, the present, the future. 

Time. Layers. Change.

After the piece is fully cleaned and temporarily restored to its box, I google the company, Black, Starr & Gorham. What is it’s story?

I learn that, though it’s gone through a variety of names, it is an American jewelry company, operating since 1810. The first article I click on focuses (by chance?) on the construction and subsequent changes over time to the company’s headquarters on Fifth Avenue. The original design, much applauded, was Italian renaissance with an exterior of white marble. But in 1962, the building was sold to a bank company that promised they’d change the interior but leave the exterior unchanged. It was a piecrust promise, for in 1964 the editor of the New York Times lamented, “its finely detailed, elegantly proportioned exterior is being destroyed, and the building will be refaced with a nondescript, banal and ordinary new ‘skin.’ “ And then in  2018, it was again remodeled, acquiring yet another facade. 

Time. Layers. Change.

I’m struck by all of this. Feel my thoughts churning, lifting, sifting. Thinking about how the past resides within the present. How change marks us and our surroundings. How the layers mount and shift. How hidden connections, stories, run through all of this. The book, my parents’ tarnished dessert stand, and the continuous remodeling of a building in New York. It all feels strangely connected. 

And then there’s a baby coming.

Time. Layers. Change.

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PF: The Delicate Burn of Happy Memories

Linda Mitchell posed our Inklings prompt, which was to respond to Kelsey Bigelow’s prompt from Ethical ELA’s September 2025 Open Write: “What is the happiest thing you’ve ever tasted?” I left that idea to simmer, then I read several of the Poetry Sisters’ burning haibuns last week. I found myself fascinated by the form and the process, and consistently impressed by the resulting trios of poems. In a nutshell, a burning haibun is a prose poem that is then used to create an erasure or blackout poem that goes through yet another erasure to end with a haiku. There’s a whole bunch more about the form here. I decided to combine this form with Linda’s prompt.

Writing a burning haibun was an interesting process. If you’ve ever played Bananagrams, you may be able to relate to it. Bananagrams is a kind of unboundaried Scrabble in which you’re constantly shifting your own responses, trying to use all the letters, forming your own game board in front of you. There can come a time when you’re playing, when you have a sprawling grid of words in front of you and a pile of letters to be placed, and you realize, you just have to push all the tiles together and start all over again. Writing this burning haibun felt somewhat like that. More than once. Here’s my current version:

I still remember those long ago days. After school, we dawdled, skipped or trudged, from the bus stop up and down hills, around corners, and all along our road. Sometimes we took the path that wandered through the woods. Sometimes we didn’t. Each season held its detours: the delicious crunch and fling of autumn leaves, the forming and throwing of errant snowballs, and the ever-optimistic plucking of an early crabapple and the bold bite;then, every single time, the spitting out of the bitter flesh. We never learned. I still remember after the long walk, seeing our house perched atop the hill and then launching forward into the final racing ascent up the slope of the driveway. Then, the feeling of opening the door and entering into the welcome of home. Generous and pure. The gentle easing. Sometimes, my mom would have baked, and the air would hint at a random gift for us–still-warm cookies waiting on the counter. In my memory, Mom always stands on the other side of the counter, smiling, patiently waiting for us.  I still see that smile, with the one tooth, slightly askew. In my mind’s eye, she’s framed with the backdrop of the kitchen, walls papered in seventies plaid, yellow, orange and green. It’s pristine. All signs of baking have been erased. The cookies rest there, as if conjured, their scent perfuming the air. Even now, remembering, my hand curves around the imagined weight of the cookie, feels its residual warmth. Such pure, true anticipation! And, oh that first taste! How my teeth slowly breeched the crust to sink into the crumble of each bite. Such innocent, sweet happiness! All tender butter and soft chocolate. In my mind, the cookies are always still warm. Always delicious. And my mom is always there. Waiting. 

I still remember those long ago days. After school, we dawdled, skipped or trudged, from the bus stop up and down hills, around corners, and all along our road. Sometimes we took the path that wandered through the woods. Sometimes we didn’t. Each season held its detours: the delicious crunch and fling of autumn leaves, the forming and throwing of errant snowballs, and the ever-optimistic plucking of an early crabapple and the bold bite; then, every single time, the spitting out of the bitter flesh. We never learned. I still remember after the long walk, seeing our house perched atop the hill and then launching forward into the final racing ascent up the slope of the driveway. Then, the feeling of opening the door and entering into the welcome of home. Generous and pure. The gentle easing. Sometimes, my mom would have baked, and the air would hint at a random gift for us–still-warm cookies waiting on the counter. In my memory, Mom always stands on the other side of the counter, smiling, patiently waiting for us.  I still see that smile, with the one tooth, slightly askew. In my mind’s eye, she’s framed with the backdrop of the kitchen, walls papered in seventies plaid, yellow, orange and green. It‘s pristine. All signs of baking have been erased. The cookies rest there, as if conjured, their scent perfuming the air. Even now, remembering, my hand curves around the imagined weight of the cookie, feels its residual warmth. Such pure, true anticipation! And, oh that first taste! How my teeth slowly breeched the crust to sink into the crumble of each bite. Such innocent, sweet happiness! All tender butter and soft chocolate. In my mind, the cookies are always still warm. Always delicious. And my mom is always there. Waiting. 

I still remember
after school detours
the delicious form
of optimistic and bold
I still long
for the welcome of home
the gentle easing
my mom
a gift
cookies waiting
signs of baking erased
tender
always warm
always there
waiting

after
home, my mom, cookies
erased

©Molly Hogan

In the end, I’m not sure if what I intended came through or not. I don’t often write about my mom, who died far too early at 38 years old, and I find it hard to read this with an objective eye. I do know I didn’t meet all the criteria of the burning haibun. I’d like to fiddle with this some more, undertake some judicious pruning. Still, overall, I enjoyed the process.

Click the links below to see what the other Inklings have done with this prompt:
Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche
Heidi Mordhorst @ my juicy little universe

Next, stop by to visit this week’s Poetry Round Up, hosted by Laura Purdie Salas.

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SOL: First and Second Grade Recess

J. limps off the soccer field to the nearby bench. On the field, the game continues, but a cluster of students buzzes about J. I edge closer, trying to gauge if this is a real injury, requiring teacher intervention, or not. I listen to the hum of conversation about J., keeping my distance, not wanting to escalate the injury with an audience, but ready to move if needed.

“Hey, buddy, you good?” a boy asks, clapping his hand on J.’s back.

J, a veteran soccer player and injury milker, shakes his head somberly and clasps his ankle.

Another student stands on one foot and demonstrates how to wiggle his ankle back and forth. “Maybe you can do this,” he suggests. “It helps me with my ankle.”

J. wiggles his foot a few times and grimaces.

A third student commiserates, “Yeah, my wrist still hurts from last night when I was jumping on my bed when I was going to sleep.” He wiggles his wrist tentatively. (I immediately grimace myself, commiserating with his parents!)

(Meanwhile, on an important side note, it was PJ and stuffy day. So, you need to know that this cast of characters is mostly wearing pajamas, and many of them are clutching their beloved small stuffies. It adds a certain nuance to the scene.)

Oblivious to the injury drama, a first grader who’s been showing off his stuffed cat’s skills to me throughout recess, runs in and out of the scene.

“Look, Mrs. Hogan, Kitty flies!” He races by again, and his stuffed cat soars overhead.

Behind me there’s some sort of feral game happening and a young girl in my class is standing still with her head thrown back. “Aroooooooooo! Aaaaaroooooooooo!!!!” She’s howling like a wolf over and over again. Suddenly, a few kids give chase, and they all race across the playground. Standing by the soccer field, I can hear the intermittent howls.

“Look, Mrs. Hogan, Kitty can jump off the pirate ship!” the first grader enthuses as he zooms past, and poor Kitty goes sailing through the air again.

Back at the bench, another boy approaches J. (who, by the way, is looking pretty perky at this point). The boy holds out his hand. Nestled in it is a rock. A large piece of nondescript gravel from the strip of rocks that edges the building.

“This rock might cure you,” says the budding shaman, solemnly handing it over. J. takes it and looks at it carefully, turning it over and over. He looks a bit confused, but game.

I realize suddenly that the howls have ceased and glance over to ensure all’s well in that corner of the recess world. After scanning the playground, I spy Wolf girl. She is lying on the picnic table as still as can be. Several classmates are pretending to dig into her stomach and are apparently eviscerating her with unholy glee. They lift handfuls of imaginary guts to their mouths and dig in.

J, miraculously cured (Was it the rock?), suddenly stands up and races back onto the soccer field with no trace of a limp. The rock falls to the ground, bounces once or twice, and then is still. The crowd disperses.

Super Kitty flies by, narrowly avoiding a collision with my head.

Such is second grade recess.

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PF: Image Poems

It’s day 41 of the school year (Who’s counting? lol), and I’m still adjusting to the back-in-school pace. Taking pictures helps me escape from the whirlwind, and calms and centers me. Mostly I’m photographing on the weekends, but sometimes, like with the double rainbow, a photo moment steals into the work week. Sometimes, in a lovely added benefit, the photos themselves serve as a springboard into poems. The first one was inspired by Georgia Heard’s prompt, “If the wind painted the sky, what colors would it choose?”

After a lashing tumult
of rain and hail
Wind offers Sky
an apology

©Molly Hogan

Autumn Striptease

brazen tree
shimmies in the breeze
preparing to shift and drop
her scarlet veil of leaves
one
by
one

a tantalizing
slow motion release

until her limbs
lay bare
for all to see

©Molly Hogan

I hope that fall is offering you beautiful moments as well, and some time to enjoy them.

This week’s Poetry Friday Round up is hosted by Jone Rush McCulloch.

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PF: Jack-o’-lantern’s Lament

On a recent, spontaneous trip to Boston, I spied this jack-o’-lantern on a city street. I’m used to seeing pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns in more rural settings, and something about this one, isolated on concrete, really stuck with me. I’ve been thinking about him ever since.

Jack-o’-lantern’s Lament

Once a plump and healthy pumpkin,
I was sundered from my vine,
cruelly disemboweled and mangled,
carved to some perverse design.

How I long for golden fields now,
yearn for trees and endless sky,
as I molder on this concrete
and amuse you passers-by.

I’ve become a foul-mouthed fruit now
overripe with mold and spores.
Do you wonder that I glower
while you rush about your chores?

©Molly Hogan, draft

This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Patricia J. Franz.

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Flurry, Float and Fly! The Story of a Snowstorm

I was delighted to have a chance to share Laura Purdie Salas’s upcoming “Flurry, Float and Fly! The Story of a Snowstorm” with my second grade students recently. As Maine residents, we’re all well-versed in snow, so would they be the perfect audience for a snowy book or a snow-jaded lot?

As we settled in to read, the book quickly grabbed their attention. It is a gorgeous match between words and images. The rhyming was so well-crafted, that it took them a while to notice it, and they were delighted when they did. It really is masterfully done! Here’s the jet stream described oh-so-efficiently and oh-so-poetically:
“From the north,
a polar freeze…

from the south,
a humid breeze…

All winds advance.
The mix and dance. “

The kids oohed and aahed over several of the spreads, including this one:

illustration by Chiara Fedele

“The words go down, down, down….Just like snow!” one student gushed. On another spread, they loved how Laura spaced her words across the page and greatly admired her use of ellipses ( a favorite second grade form of punctuation!). On other pages students noticed how Laura used larger font and capitals to make words pop out. By the end of the book, my students were chanting along with the refrain, “flurry, float and fly.”

As we discussed the book, they asked me to turn back to this next page again and again. It captures the magic of early morning snow and the arrangement of words and those lovely ellipses invite you to linger…to slow down and just take it all in.

As a bonus, there are several pages of back matter to dig into. In them, the science of snow is beautifully and clearly articulated, with explanations of the jet stream and snowflake formation and well-chosen illustrations. We didn’t have a chance to dig into these pages yet, but I’m already thinking how I will use them to model some powerful non-fiction reading and thinking.

Most of all, my students fell into the wonder of the book and its snowstorm. As Laura noted, “I know that science underpins its beauty, but it’s still magic, falling silently, gracefully, from the sky.” My students agreed, and there wasn’t a jaded one among them! Laura’s words and Chiara’s illustrations wove a spell of a beautiful snowfall on a very warm fall day. My active semi-chaotic class was lulled by Laura and Chiara’s collaboration into a temporarily peaceful state.

Perhaps I’ll read it again tomorrow!

Note: It’s due for release on November 11th, so you will also have the chance to enjoy it soon!

An additional side note: If you haven’t ever had a chance to read Laura’s book, Finding Family: The Duckling Raised by Loons, I highly recommend that you do! Published in 2023, it’s already become a a must read in my classroom. Kids are fascinated by the story and it sparks some wonderful discussions about family.

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Sarah Grace Tuttle!

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SOL: Safety

On a sunlit chilly afternoon last week, the fire department came to visit. This is an annual event, and one that second graders greet with enthusiasm. They are always enthralled by the equipment and excited to share what they already know about fire safety. They also anticipate being able to clamber in and out of the fire truck and ambulance and maybe even try on a helmet. What’s not to love?

After touring the ambulance, we sat on the pavement in front of the fire truck, listening to the fireman talk. Suddenly, a radio squawked to life. In between static, we could hear blips of the incoming transmission, including something about “medical call” and “a four year old.” Everyone started shuffling and whispering, eyes wide, watching the professionals confer and click into gear. Within moments the ambulance crew had quickly departed in response, and the fireman had resumed his presentation. After a few more murmurs of “What’s going on?” and “Did you hear that?”, the kids settled back in to listen.

Except for one of them.

J. was slouched within his hooded sweatshirt, and I could see that he was still talking to his neighboring classmates, though they were mostly ignoring him, intent on answering the fireman’s questions about “Stop, Drop, and Roll!” J’s a big kid who vacillates between maintaining a tough guy veneer (second grade swagger?) and indulging his penchant for silliness. He can struggle with meeting expectations. I went over to check in.

“What’s up, J.?” I asked him.

“They said it was a four year old,” he said.

I reassured him that it was a medical call and that the ambulance left quickly so that they could help whoever it was who needed them.

“But I’m scared,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I reiterated. “Help is on the way for them.”

“But I thought it was a shooter. Was it a shooter?” he asked in a tremulous voice.

“No, J, it isn’t a shooter,” I said, suddenly struggling to form words. “It was a family who needed help, and help is on the way. You’re okay. We’re all safe.”

“So it’s not a shooter?” he asked.

I rubbed his back and reassured him some more. “No. There’s no shooter, J. That family is getting the help they need, and we’re safe. We’re all okay.”

“Oh, okay” he murmured, “I just thought it was a shooter.”

I sat beside him for the rest of the presentation, stunned and heartbroken, wondering if my words were even true, because in our country, firearms are the leading cause of death in children and adolescents. Our national priorities are horrendously skewed, and I’m really not so sure that we’re all safe and we’re all okay.

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PF: Autumn

This week has been a doozy. I’m chiming in with a little poem in praise of Autumn, and with thanks to Georgia Heard‘s October prompt calendar for inspiration.

Autumn 

If I chose words
to hang
upon an autumn tree
I’d write 
dazzle
tremble
release and
flutterfall

and be thankful
for them all

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Linda Baie at her blog, Teacher Dance.

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PF: Hope

This month Margaret posed our Inklings challenge. She matched us up with partners and instructed us to send images to each other and write a poem sparked by the image we received. Catherine Flynn was my partner and she sent me three photos to choose between. I struggled to chose which picture to use, but kept coming back to this one:

Hope
is a cluster of eggs
nestled together.
Exquisite promise
cradled
in the terrifying fragility
of three thin shells.

©Molly Hogan

If you’d like to see what others in the group did with their photo prompts, click on the links below:

Linda @A Word Edgewise
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Matt Forrest Esenwine at his blog, Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

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A rambling sort of slice

I’m struggling with what to write this morning. My early-morning brain is bouncing around like a pinball between bumpers. For years now I’ve deliberately carved morning time out of each day for myself. I’ve gotten up an hour before I need to just so that I have a little space. A quiet space. A breathing space. Just for me. For writing. For pondering and wondering. For word games. For whatever I want.

But these days, school spills in. It’s a bit sneaky. I don’t even realize it’s made inroads until suddenly I discover myself thinking about how to manage rug time, what I should do about so-and-so, and how to manage five behavior charts in a room of 16 students…when I started by wondering if there was a poem to midwife out of my thoughts about fall mornings. Or how I might respond to a poetry photo prompt. Sometimes thinking about school is a mental exercise in curiosity and at other times it feels a bit like a spreading stain. An invasive species of thought.

One of my favorite things about my mornings has always been my commute to school. I get to drive along back country roads through farmland and across a scenic river. It never fails to both settle and lift me. This year, unfortunately, there is a massive construction project underway. Four miles of it. I discovered this when driving to school for our first PD days late in August. After sitting for long, long minutes in traffic repeatedly stopped for one-way travel, I quickly realized that I would have to drive the alternative route to school. The one I take when driving conditions are treacherous. The one that takes me onto 75 mph freeway traffic and then over less-than-scenic roads. I still cross the bridge, but somehow I’m not as primed to appreciate its beautiful view.

I didn’t realize was how much I would miss this commute. How much I needed it.

Early this past Saturday morning, I decided to check out how much progress had been made on the road and also visit my beloved scenery. I was surprised to find that even close to sunrise and on a Saturday, there was a flagger in place and the road was reduced to one-way travel for part of my journey. Still, there wasn’t much traffic, and once I was through that, I was able to settle in and enjoy the views.

The scenery did not disappoint.

After considering the pros and cons, I decided I’ll be driving that way again this morning. Even with the potential for delays, it’s 100% worth it.