After two months of daily writing (minus a few days in February), my writing energy is fading, fading, fading. Thus, it seemed especially appropriate to share a trio of poems inspired by a ghost leaf.

Rain showered
Wind scoured
Time devoured

M. Hogan (c) 2018

Autumn’s light imprint
trickles away with the breeze
sand and time disperse

M. Hogan (c) 2018

Once a fallen leaf
Now a fading memory
How fleeting it is

M. Hogan (c) 2018

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Heidi Mordhorst at her fabulous blog, My Juicy Little Universe. She facilitates a wonderful discussion with Irene Latham and Liz Steinglass, explaining the origins of the Progressive Poem and the exciting twist for this year. Skip on over to enjoy that and to get a head start on April’s Poetry Month.

March 2018 SOLC–Day 30
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

Yesterday, I raced out the doors at the end of the day with as much enthusiasm as the kids did. (Although I managed to maintain a brisk walk and to resist the temptation to gallop, skip and/or dance. On a side note, neither did I throw myself into a snow bank. But I digress…) The sky was blue, the sun was shining and with temperatures in the low 50s, it felt practically balmy! I bumped into my slicing colleague, Cindy of Mainer in Training (And as another aside, can I just say how delightful it is to work with someone who participates in the challenge?!)

“Only two more days!” we whooped, as the kids streamed by to get on buses.

“And it’s so beautiful out!” we enthused.

We walked inside together, celebrating the weather and commiserating about writing wells that seem to be running dry, about how tough the last few slices have been, and about the intensity of the past few weeks at school.

The weather outside was singing it’s siren song, and Cindy was practically dancing with impatience. “I’m going home right now,” she said.

“Me, too!” I exclaimed. “No conferences tonight!” I daydreamed aloud. “It’s so beautiful! I wonder if it’s warm enough to sit on the porch at home in the special sheltered spot. I could even have a margarita!”

“Oh! You could slice about this conversation!” Cindy suggested.

“Oh, maybe I will! I’d been thinking about creating a spine poem,” I said. “Leigh Anne Eck just wrote one, and I’d forgotten all about them.”

“What’s a spine poem?” Cindy asked. I explained and she looked thoughtful.

After a bit more conversation, we both went our separate ways, excited by spring temperatures and a free afternoon at the end of a couple of long weeks.

By the time I arrived home, the clouds had rolled in and the temperature had dropped. Honestly, I didn’t even mind. It was enough having tasted the possibility. Soon enough, I’ll spend a lazy afternoon on the porch, basking in the spring sun. Reading and maybe drinking an iced coffee or a margarita. It didn’t happen today, but it was well worth imagining. And anticipating it will make it all the sweeter when it does arrive.

March 2018 SOLC–Day 29
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

Mainers are a hardy breed. The sun comes out in winter and shorts appear. It’s slightly insane. Below is one of my favorite early spring beach pictures. Outside of the camera shot, visitors’ attire ranged from full Arctic to flip flops, shorts and T-shirts. Clearly the parents of these two intrepid kids are masters of compromise. Their children are suitably attired up top for warmth and from the waist down for a bit of spring fun, Maine-style! This isn’t an uncommon sight. After seemingly-endless, dark winters, we’re all too ready to throw off the shackles of heavy socks, boots and long underwear.

Once the temperatures start to edge up, there’s an ongoing coat battle with fourth graders. The sun comes out and they do NOT want to wear a coat to recess. Even though it’s 30 degrees with a 15 mph wind. Often I check the temperature or the wind chill to bolster my “Yes, you have to wear your coat” position.

Yesterday, as we were lining up, a staff member stopped by. Knowing he monitored recess each day, I asked,  “What’s it like outside?”

“It’s nice,” he enthused. “I think it’s close to 50 now!”

His words rippled through the room, setting off a tsunami of joyful whoops and cries.

“50!”

“Woohoo! 50!”

“It’s 50 out!”

Our line disintegrated into happy chaos as kids ripped off their coats and dashed out of line to throw them with wild abandon back into their cubbies.

“Did you hear that!? It’s 50 out! You don’t have to take a coat!”

Their smiles were as dazzling as the spring-ish sunshine.

We managed to reorganized into a sort-of line and walk down the long hallways without totally disgracing ourselves. We pushed open the doors to nirvana, aka the playground, and the kids burst through, a geyser of energy and enthusiasm.

C. rushed out, threw her arms up in the air and yelled, “It’s stinkin’ 50 degrees!”, then raced off over the snow piles to play.

I had to laugh. Only in Maine does 50 degrees generate such excitement.

March 2018 SOLC–Day 28
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

I’m turning back to a tried and true format as time for slicing/writing gets pinched by a crazy parent-teacher conference week.

Currently, I’m …

March 2018 SOLC–Day 27
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

Parent teacher conferences are in full swing and our school is buzzing with activity until late in the evening. Last night while waiting for a student and parent, I was straightening up the room and getting ready for today. Across the hall I saw a third grader standing with her Scholastic Book Fair swag clutched in her arms. I stepped out to say hello and she held up her poster for me to see.

This isn’t the precise poster, but you get the idea!

“Whoa, A!” I said. “What are those?”

“Piranhas,” she announced.

“That is one scary looking poster, ” I said. “Where are you going to put it?”

She shrugged. “My sister’s one.”

I paused, uncertain what she meant, then asked, “Your sister’s one what?”

“A piranha,” she replied.

“A… piranha?” I repeated.

“Yes,” she said, simply.

Her mom, hovering nearby, smiled and interjected in a patient tone, “A., your sister is not a piranha.”

I had the feeling that this was not a new conversation.

“She likes to bite,” A stated firmly.

“Well,” her mom continued, glancing at me, somewhat flustered, “she doesn’t really bite. She just pretends to.”

“She’s a piranha,” A repeated.

“She doesn’t even have her front teeth!” her mom said.

I laughed, though I noticed that A. did not look amused or convinced. We talked a bit more about this and that. Then A. and her mom turned to head down the hall and out the door, and I turned to head into my classroom.

A. must have handed her Book Fair booty to her mom, because I suddenly felt her arms wrapped around my waist.

“Good night, Mrs. Hogan.”

“Good night, A.”

She dashed off down the hallway again to reclaim her poster and books. I walked into my classroom.

 Oh, I do hope A is in my class next year!

March 2018 SOLC–Day 26
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
twowritingteachers.org

Note: I am not an artist, so please excuse any vague or inaccurate terminology in this post.

I’ve gone off on a bit of an Andrew Wyeth tangent this month. On a recent Sunday, after learning about an exhibit of his drawings at the Farnsworth Museum, I convinced my husband that he really wanted to drive up to Rockland, Maine with me. To my surprise, he didn’t mind the idea of the long drive up the coast to the museum, and off we went.

Andrew Wyeth, Her Room, 1963

Less than two hours later we were standing in a gallery looking at Wyeth’s painting, Her Room.  It’s a beautiful painting and worthy of its place of honor on the gallery wall. But what really enriched the experience for us was the array of sketches, drawings and studies that hung on the other walls of the room. They offered a window into Wyeth’s process of creating this painting, documenting some of the many steps.

Wyeth wrote notes to himself on his drawings. This says “warm gray, remember this”

As I walked through the gallery, my thoughts turned again and again to writing–specifically to my writer’s notebook. In no way am I comparing the level of my writing to Andrew Wyeth’s painting, but to me it seems that he followed a similar process with his drawings. Where I use my notebook to write a rough draft, to try out a new idea or form, to experiment and play with words, etc, Wyeth used these sketches, studies, and drawings to help him enter into the world of his subject.  Focusing on one thing after another. Playing with approaches.

In particular, I was intrigued by the partially painted drawings, with parts roughly sketched and others fully painted. They seemed alive somehow, coming into being before my eyes. They reminded me of notebook entries where some parts emerge richly from my pen and others are merely an outline to return to at a later time. Wyeth even wrote notes to himself on some of them, like “warm gray, remember this”.

Together, these “rough drafts” offered insight into the process of the artist at work and into the final piece. What a fascinating exhibit!

Working on the doorknob

A close up: While studying the doorknob to get it just right, Wyeth realized he could see his own reflection in it. He included it in the finished piece.

March 2018 SOLC–Day 25
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

“Molly!”

I turned awkwardly in the crowd, and there was Cindy–friend, colleague and fellow slicer (Mainer in Training). We were in the midst of hundreds and hundreds of people gathering for the March for Life in Portland, Maine. And yet she’d seen me. Amazing! Both of us were on our own, feeling that it was important to add to the numbers, to make a statement with our presence and participation. As the crowd grew, we chatted, talked about our shared concerns, read signs together and marveled at the turnout.

After a while, at some invisible signal, a cheer rose up and the crowd surged forward, banners high. We marched down Congress Street with thousands of others. A sea of peaceful protest.

Why did I march? I marched for our children because I am heartsick over the growing number of lives lost and our inaction as a nation. I marched because I hoped that a show of solidarity would elicit a meaningful national response and common sense changes in gun control laws. I marched because I’m angry and disgusted that politicians have abdicated their responsibilities. I marched because I was determined to stand up against the insanity.  Because I can’t accept that our country’s primary response to gun violence in schools is to have lockdown drills and bulletproof backpacks. Or armed teachers. I marched because I don’t want to have another child say to  me: “You know why I did so good during the drill? I was really quiet ’cause I didn’t want anyone to shoot me.”

As we marched past the First Parrish Church,  bells began to toll, loud and clear in the chilled air.

“Are they ringing because of the time?”

We checked. It was 10:46. No, it wasn’t the time. The bells were tolling in solidarity with the marchers. The clarion call of those bells rising into the air above us packed an emotional wallop. Tears rushed to my eyes.

After I blinked them away, the next thing I saw was a young child in a stroller. A sign was strapped in before her. “Will I Be Next?” it asked.

I couldn’t take a picture.

I marched.

March 2018 SOLC–Day 24
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

The beauty of the pink-tinged horizon tugged me toward the bay. I looked at the clock in the car. I still had time. I turned right to head down to the water for a moment of serenity, to  welcome the day with the sunrise.

When was the last time I did this? I wondered, as I drove. Greeting dawn by the water is a lovely, peaceful way to start the day. With the bay only a mile from home, I used to do it quite frequently. What changed? Why did I stop taking these few extra minutes?

Then I realized what had happened. Last spring a woman died by suicide there. Self-inflected gunshot. A man discovered her body early in the morning. When my husband told me, I remember thinking, “That could have been me finding her.” And then I felt guilty for thinking of myself. I can’t imagine the pain that woman was in and the horror that man experienced when he found her body. But still, I thought about the what ifs and that painful scene stained the place in my mind. Tainted its serenity. I had been back to the park since, but never in the morning.

So yesterday morning, I pulled into the parking lot. Color seeped up from below the horizon, silhouetting tree branches. Ice still covered the water in sheets of white, traversed by occasional rifts and cracks.  On a small open area beneath the bridge, black and white birds paddled and swirled in the current.  It’s a beautiful place.

I thought again about that woman. What drove her to make that desperate, final choice?  Why here? And I thought about that man. How has his life been impacted by that early morning discovery? I thought about all the places we walk through or drive past, oblivious to their physical and emotional history, both distant and more recent. I thought about how I had unconsciously avoided coming to the park in the morning for almost a year, even though I had experienced such quiet joy there so many times.

What’s the heart of this moment? I had hoped writing about it would help me sort through my feelings, but I’m still figuring it out. But stepping out of the car yesterday morning, I made a conscious decision to resume my early morning visits. I will remember the pain of others, but still, I will allow the lure of a pink-tinged sky to pull me down to the water. I will take the time to watch the sunrise, to rejoice in the optimism inherent in dawn. And I will be thankful for the peace and serenity of this beautiful place.