I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of participating in Laura P. Salas’s 15 Words Or Less Poetry Challenge.  Each Thursday she posts a photo prompt and shares her first draft  poem. The idea is to “wake up your poetry brain” by writing your response to the photo and sharing it. It’s intended as a fun, low-stakes, creative exercise.

This week’s  photo prompt was a picture of a sculpture of a leopard from the Minnesota Zoo.

Photo credit to Laura P. Salas

You can read her delightfully dark poem and other responses here. This is my first draft effort:

Menace

No jaunty polka dots
can camouflage the
lethal grace and
coiled muscles
poised to pounce

Molly Hogan (c) 2017

The vet’s words faded in and out. Key phrases caught my ears.
“Kidney levels…off the charts…heroic efforts…even then it’s unlikely…”
He paused and looked at me for a long moment. “It would be a kindness,” he finally said.

I stroked my cat’s soft fur and my eyes filled and my heart ached. I remembered her as a small fuzzy kitten, skittering about the house. Then, later, as the valiant cat who had recovered from serious injury and re-adjusted to life on three working legs. The cat who greeted me each morning and afternoon. The one who raced to the kitchen whenever a deli bag wrinkled, to beg desperately for sliced ham. The one who meowed plaintively from the hallway when she felt it was time for me to go to bed, and who slept snuggled by my side. Who purred contentedly as I stroked her in the dark hours when insomnia visited. And now I cradled my featherweight cat in my arms, feeling the weight of her years. After a moment, I looked at the vet and I nodded, marking the beginning of the end of seventeen years of our togetherness.

Later, as the poison flowed into her veins, I held her body in my arms, pet her, and wept, whispering to her.

“Thank you, sweet Ling Ling. You were the best.”

“I’m going to miss you so much.”

“You won’t hurt anymore, sweet girl.”

I kissed the top of her head three times, once for each of my children, saying softly, “This is from Connor. This is from Addie. This is from Lyddie.”

And then it was over. Oh, so quickly.

Last night, we buried her under the apple tree.

While I was running earlier this week, I was reminiscing about my summer and thinking how thoroughly I’d enjoyed it. The first several lines of this poem popped into my mind, and the rest soon followed. Once home, I jotted it all down and played around with it a bit. With roots in my summer fun and a nod to Eve Merriam’s inspiring poem How To Eat A Poem, here it is:

How to Eat A Summer

I gobbled up summer
like Eve Merriam
might eat a poem
taking greedy bites
so luscious juicy streams
escaped my lips
rolled down my chin
then fell in bright sticky drops
onto my outspread fingers
from which I licked up
every delicious bit

There was nothing left
to throw away

Molly Hogan (c) 2017

For this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup, head on over to Jone Rush McCulloch’s blog, Check It Out. Don’t forget to bring your appetite!

I’m not going to lie*. Part of me is dreading the beginning of the school year. A big part. I’ve been ignoring it a bit, but the feeling creeps up behind me when I least expect it–kind of like a rogue wave crashing down on you when your back is turned toward the ocean. You’re enjoying the feel on the sun on your shoulders, blissing out on the mellow day, when….WHAM! That realization strikes: School starts in just a few weeks.

As that date looms ever nearer, I know that it’s the mornings I will miss the most, these carefree summer mornings. I love to get up early and enjoy my coffee, catch up on e-mails and Facebook, write, and, if the mood strikes, go for a run. I hang out on the back porch. I take pictures. I don’t look at the clock.  I’m just not ready to lose these slow-paced mornings when each day unfolds at its own glorious pace. I know how they will change once school starts: I can feel it in my bones.

And yet, a significant part of me is excited to get back to school. I love working with my students and my colleagues. I love the excitement of learning and growing together. I just am not looking forward to the relentlessness of the pace. I don’t want to spend every day working, or feeling like I should be working. I don’t want to start each day rushing, feeling like I’m already behind.

Part of me hesitated to share this post, because I feel like I’m a “bad” teacher for feeling this way–like if I were truly passionate and committed, I would only feel excited about the approaching year. I’d be brimming with ideas and enthusiasms. Honestly, I do have those feelings as well. I know that once I’m in my classroom and getting to know my students, I’m going to be happy to be there. I do have new ideas and things I can’t wait to share with my class. But I also am feeling very protective of my personal life and of the ways I nurture myself and enjoy time with family and friends. The intensity of teaching allows for so little of that.

This is my tenth year teaching. Before I started, I knew that balancing home and school would be very challenging. I’d heard about the time demands and stress, I knew my own nature, and I recognized already that this would be a difficult balancing act for me. It was then, and it still is now.

There’s a teacher I know who used to work on Friday night straight through. I mean straight through. She worked until she was tired, slept a while and then continued to work until sometime Saturday morning when she left. Apparently, this was her solution to the problem of work spilling into her weekend. Due to changes in the school’s alarm system, she can no longer do this, and I’m not sure what her current approach is, but isn’t it crazy that part of me sees this as a viable solution?  My own solution has been to wake up ever earlier as the year proceeds (and the work piles up) so that I have some down time each morning before I start working. But waking up at 4:30 or even 4:15 perpetuates a vicious cycle. If I’m up that early, and don’t get home til 5:30 or so, I have no extra energy to work at home during the evening.  If I don’t work in the evening, I feel like I need to fit in a fair chunk of work in the morning. See how that works? I’m starting to feel like I’m in a Laura Numeroff book! So, instead of just complaining about it, how do I change this? I don’t have an answer, but, believe me, I’m thinking a lot about it!

So,  yeah, I’m feeling that “August is the Sunday night of the Summer for Teachers” thing. I’m not gonna lie.

*A week or two ago, Linda Mitchell hosted Poetry Friday Roundup and offered a wonderful array of starting lines for people to use in poems. This one has stuck with me and I’m using it to begin this slice instead. Thanks, Linda!

I love taking pictures and often share some of them on Facebook. After a recent photo post, a friend jokingly commented, “I’m enjoying your shadow phase.” Until she wrote that, I hadn’t realized that I had taken quite a few shadow pictures lately. In the past few weeks, there has been a definite shadow theme running through my photos. Once I realized this, I found myself thinking about shadows a lot. As I took pictures or looked over ones I’d previously taken, I realized something: While I typically think of shadows as hiding things, most of the shadows in my photos reveal things rather than conceal them.

A week or so ago, I visited my Dad and stepmother in Ohio. We spent a lot of time sitting on their back deck, chatting and enjoying the beautiful weather. One afternoon I noticed this whimsical shadow garden.  I loved the look of the mixed echinacea and black-eyed susan shadows. When the warm breeze blew, they danced on the patterned brick.

I enjoy walking and hiking in the woods and there’s almost always some dramatic light play at work. There’s the dappled shadow quality that polka-dots the forest floor, or the stream of light rays filtering through tree branches, or intense single rays that highlight patches on the ground. In this picture I love how the sun painted the shadow of this plant onto its leaf. It highlights the blossom, but also draws your eye to the intricate veins of the leaf.

On another recent walk, a beam of light cast a fern shadow on a tree trunk. Without that shadow, I doubt I would have noticed the fern or the deep crevices in the textured tree bark.

Soon afterward, I noticed more fern shadows on the side of our barn. Again, the interplay between the sun-lit background texture and shadow intrigues me.

In this picture, I love how the petals of a simple marigold cast shadows, adding depth and texture. There are also the added shadows of a vine-y plant wallpapering the metal planter behind the blossom, enhancing the background.

It’s berry time in Maine and there are many, many blackberry bushes around my house. Each year we harvest them to make blackberry jam, jelly or baked goodies. On my first harvest this year, I found this little hitchhiker. I love the elongated berry shadow and how the insect’s shadow bugwalked on my counter. The ambiguous background shadows somehow add intensity or mystery to the scene.

On sunny afternoons, the sunlight streams through the windows of our home, casting shadows onto the old pine floors. The floors glow so richly, striped with window pane shadows. I’m not the only one who enjoys the sun and shadow interplay. Millie, my daughter’s cat, couldn’t resist the lure, and her shadow added to the fun.

And even though this post is about shadows, Valerie Worth’s  poem “sun”  is the perfect, irresistible caption to this photo.

sun

The sun
Is a leaping fire
Too hot
To go near,

But it will still
Lie down
In warm yellow squares
On the floor

Like a flat
Quilt, where
The cat can curl
And purr.

So, what do you notice about the shadows in your world? Are they revealing or concealing? Whimsical or threatening? Mysterious or illuminating? Once you start paying attention to them, you’ll notice shadows everywhere.

On a side note, it seems especially apt to post this today with a solar eclipse, the mother of all shadows, due to occur. When you’re not looking up, be sure to look on the ground and see what other interesting shadows appear.

Some time ago I read a post about Issa, the haiku master, and I subscribed to receive a daily haiku translated by David Gerard Lanoue. (It may have been someone’s Poetry Friday Roundup post–If so, let me know so I can give you credit!)

*Update–It was Robyn Hood Black’s wonderful Poetry Friday Roundup post from about a year ago, entitled, “Daily Issa and Creatures Great and Small.” Go check it out and perhaps you’ll choose to sign up to receive a daily Issa haiku as well!  Rereading her post, I realized that I’d misnamed the translator–Yikes! I’d listed his middle name as his last name. I’ve now corrected that as well. Thanks, Robyn!

Here are three Issa haiku I particularly enjoyed over the past year.

1813

.鶏やちんば引々日の長き
niwatori ya chinba hiki-hiki hi no nagaki

the lame chicken
dragging, dragging…
a long day

That one aptly summarized my feelings mid-way through a trying school day–or maybe it was mid-morning.

And then there were some days when I felt like the snake in this one:

1824

.穴を出る蛇の頭や猫がはる
ana wo deru hebi no atama ya neko ga haru

from his hole
the snake pokes his head…
the cat slaps it

Finally, this one struck me as the perfect caption for a picture I’d taken a few summers ago.

1825

.小粒なは安心げぞかたつむり
ko tsubu na wa anshin ge zo katatsumuri

so teeny-tiny
peacefully resting
snail

Last night as I struggled to sleep, instead of counting sheep, I counted syllables and wrote this haiku.

Tossing, turning thoughts
A lone cricket’s serenade
Midnight companions

Molly Hogan (c) 2017

Please head on over to Kay McGriff’s blog A Journey Through the Pages. There you will find her powerful poem in response to recent events in our world and also links to other poems in this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup.

Yesterday I woke early. I slipped from bed before the sun had slipped over the horizon. I sipped warm coffee and dabbled in my notebook, playing with a few ideas and some poems. I examined a moth that had visited over night and still rested beneath the exterior light. In the garden the hummingbirds darted and hovered and dipped their needle beaks into phlox blossoms and bee balm.

Yesterday I slipped away for an early morning walk on the beach. I left a meandering trail of footprints along the shore. The waves swished and the gulls called. The piping plovers and sand pipers rushed back and forth, playing tag with the surf. I soaked in the serenity of stretches of sand, sky and water. No one else was in sight. My fingers traced water-etched grains of drift wood and I followed a butterfly as it danced and fluttered across the sloping sand.

Yesterday I sat on the back porch and felt the sun warm on my legs. The chickens clucked contentedly and strutted by to see if I had anything to offer. My cat dozed under the lawn chair. I read my book until my daughter and two of her friends joined me. We talked of their lives as they head out to their first year out of college–Two of them, my daughter included, heading to Philadelphia, one to Arizona. My husband joined us. We sat on the porch and talked about nothing important, nothing newsworthy.

Yesterday I painted with my husband. We worked on the front of the house, brushing rich strokes of color over old, worn paint. Companionable and quiet. Productive.

Yesterday I talked on the phone with two of my sisters, catching up. We chitchatted about our children, tag sales, jobs, books, exercise, our Dad.  We shared. We connected.

Yesterday I also talked with my son. He called on his way home from work and we chatted leisurely about this and that–his girlfriend, his summer, his job and when we would see each other next. He tried to educate me about preseason football. I encouraged him to get new tires and to make an appointment to have his teeth cleaned.

Yesterday I played cards with my daughters. “One more game,” we kept saying. We laughed at our competitive natures and commiserated at the difficulties of the game. They kept up a running repartie, peppered with laughing comments and quotes to each other–quirky inside jokes or references to shows/movies they’d watched together. I basked in the moment and in their friendship, which once wasn’t and now so clearly is.

Yesterday I slipped into bed next to my husband. My book was waiting. I fell into its pages and then, shortly afterward, drifted away into sleep.

I don’t know what today will bring, but I’m so grateful for yesterday.

“Some Days”
by Philip Terman

Some days you have to turn off the news
and listen to the bird or truck
or the neighbor screaming out her life.
You have to close all the books and open
all the windows so that whatever swirls
inside can leave and whatever flutters
against the glass can enter. Some days
you have to unplug the phone and step
out to the porch and rock all afternoon
and allow the sun to tell you what to do.
…
Read the rest here

I woke feeling pulled in two directions this morning. I yearn to linger in the joys of schedule-free summer days, yet I feel the advent of the school year pulling me toward my classroom, planning, etc.  I also feel the weight of those remaining items on that lengthy “To Be Done Over the Summer” list.

Some days, I think, you have to step away from it all and simply read poetry. If you’d like to do so as well, click on the link to head over to the fantastic blog, Reflections on the Teche, where Margaret Simon is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup.

I smiled to myself all spring. I hugged the thought to myself month after month. As the time approached I felt like I was holding a secret close–a delicious secret. Whenever I thought about it, I felt buoyed, lifted with excitement. I savored the waves of pure, sweet anticipation.

It all started last fall, when one of my best friends from college called and proposed that some of us get together to celebrate our 50th birthday year. Over the next few months, she found a house to rent on the coast of Maine, and after a flurry of e-mails, texts and phone calls, and plane and car reservations, six of us committed to be there.

In 1985 we arrived wide-eyed at college, coming from Ohio, New York, Maryland and Kentucky. Most of us met our freshmen year: In fact, 5 of the 6 of us were in the same freshman dorm–4 of us on the same floor. Bashford Hall. 2nd floor. Over the years some of us have stayed in touch, while others drifted off in different directions. In some instances, we hadn’t seen each other in 28 years! (How is that even possible?)

Now, in 2017, we were coming to Maine from Oregon, Ohio, Maine, and Kentucky. Between us, we have 12 children. The youngest is 12 and two have already graduated from college. We all have turned or will turn 50 this year. (How is that even possible!?) We were all excited to reunite and perhaps slightly nervous. How would this be? A whole week together after so many years apart…

On Friday, July 22nd, the first three arrived at my house–Long hugs, tears and exclamations of “OMG, you look just the same!” The years simply fell away and as one friend later noted, “we didn’t miss a beat.” That night we looked through an old photo album and a scrap book. (Ok. Maybe we don’t look exactly the same.)

“Oh! Remember that?”
“Who is that?”
“What was I wearing?”
“What was I doing??”
We laughed and laughed and talked and talked late into the night. The next day we drove to our “tree house” retreat and reunited with another friend there. More happy tears and long heartfelt hugs.

Over the course of the week, we adventured in the daytime and then after dinner, sat around the kitchen table talking late into the night. Our sixth friend joined us and some of us had to depart early. We reminisced and we shared our stories from the past oh-so-many years. I was repeatedly astonished and moved by how connected I felt with these women and by how openly and easily we shared. Heartaches and triumphs. Births and deaths. Hopes and dreams. Fears and concerns. The years fell away. Past and present merged.

Now that our week has ended and we’ve all returned to our homes, I look again at those college pictures. We were so young. So fresh. So new. We met at such a pivotal time in our lives. The ties that bound us then were clearly stronger than the passage of years, for neglected as they were in some cases, they never broke. I’m still trying to process our week together–to make sense of the intensity of our connection. But mostly, I’m smiling to myself through the lingering goodbye tears and hugging the thought close to me. I have a delicious secret–a renewed connection to five fabulous women who knew me back when I was getting to know myself. In the words of the Kahlil Gibran, my heart has found “its morning and is refreshed.”