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Snow Buzz and a little Bribery

All day yesterday the school hallways buzzed with conjecture and conversation:

What’s the latest forecast?

Do you think we’ll have school tomorrow?

Oooh! It just changed to a Storm Warning! They’re calling for 6-9 inches now!

We have a new superintendent this year and were unsure what his snow day protocol/parameters might be. It created a lot of uncertainty and a certain level of anxiety. Our last superintendent hailed from Texas and tended to be generous doling out snow days, often doing so in advance. Had we gotten spoiled? Would this one be different?

Do you think he’ll let us know the night before?

Do we know if anyone briefed him about the two bus accidents on snowy days last year? (or was it three?)

I spent much of the day “forecast shopping”–aka trying to find the forecast that made a snow day appear most likely. I visited my apple weather app, Wunderground, NOAA, Snow Day Calculator, and the local forecast web sites. Again and again. And yet again. In the evening, my colleagues and I texted back and forth, weighing the odds, noting other schools that had already announced closures.

I fell asleep still not knowing what to expect, but feeling cautiously optimistic…

When I woke there was still no news, but shortly afterward, the call came in…

NO SCHOOL!

The day unfolded before me like a gift. Time immediately slipped into a slower track, and the urge to hurry drifted away. I filled the bird feeders and soon enough the birds arrived and the snow started falling. I watched as finches, chickadees, juncos, cardinals, bluejays, and masses of bluebirds settled in to feast. Sadly a flock of starlings came by as well–such beautiful gluttons! There were downy woodpeckers, titmice and house finches, too. As my eyes kept drifting to the window, I realized that I might be in trouble if I really wanted to get some work done. I was going to have to seriously consider my snow day plans so that I could both enjoy the day and take advantage of the extra time to get ahead on grading.

As I get older and more resistant to working at home, I’ve leaned into bribery. Whenever I have heavy grading to do, I typically buy myself an amazing treat from a local bakery. Almond tea cake with a raspberry glaze anyone? I set it on the table in front of me while I work. Then, I’m allowed to eat it when I’m done. It works really well, and I’m sure that says a lot about me!

So, knowing how effective this is, I created today’s plan:

  1. remain in PJs all day
  2. start up both wood stoves and get the house cozy warm
  3. write a SOL post
  4. make gingerbread (the butter’s already softening!)
  5. score writing prompts (that we quickly rescheduled to complete yesterday in case there was a snow day today)
  6. enjoy a fat slab of warm spicy gingerbread with a cappuccino
  7. finish entering grades and reread/revise drafted comments or get some planning done for tomorrow (Could there be a delay for snowstorm clean up?!?)
  8. read or start a puzzle or watch the birds or take pictures or space out by the wood stove or whatever captures my fancy!
  9. consider opening the party-sized bag of Skinny Pop, but only if I’m not full of gingerbread

The rest of the day will be list-free. Whatever happens, happens. And whatever I’m doing, I’ll be doing in my pajamas…and that includes shoveling! I know that I’ll probably regret this day come June, but for now, I’m all in!

Snow days are such a gift!

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Where did it go?

Yesterday afternoon was my first bone density scan. It was scheduled immediately after my annual mammogram. I mean, how much fun can you have in one afternoon, right? At any rate, I walked into the room clutching my thin, purple hospital top, tied to open in front, unsure what to expect. 

“We’re just going to get a weight,” said the technician, stopping in front of a scale. 

“Okay,” I said, taking off my shoes, wishing I hadn’t worn jeans.

I stepped on the scale and she recorded the number. 

“Now a height, “ she said, “and then I have a few questions to ask.” She gestured toward a sort of measuring station. “Stand there.” 

I dutifully stood with my back against the wall, and she moved a piece down until it rested on the crown of my head.

“Ok,” she said, “5 feet 4.5 inches.”

Wait! What!

I’d become accustomed to the half inch I’d lost somewhere through the years, but now there was another half inch gone!? What’s up with that!? My mind raced.

I think I was slouching. I’m sure I could have stood up straighter! Why didn’t she tell me to stand up my straightest? Should I ask her to measure again? 

Meanwhile, I sat down and responded automatically to the questions she was posing.

“Do you take calcium supplements?”
“No.”

“Do you take estrogen?”
“No.”

Then after a slew of other questions, she asked, maybe in a fake friendly voice, (Was she trying to rub it in?!) “What is the tallest height you’ve ever been?”

I never expected that I would ever be asked that question. Ever. 

In my head all I heard was, “I’m shrinking!” echoing over and over à la Margaret Hamilton. 

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PF: Night at the Museum

It’s been a school year. All 55 days of it. I keep telling myself I’m growing as a teacher. I’m learning a lot. I tell myself that on repeat. (There’s some other looping self-talk going on, too, but I’m not going to share that right now.)

Trying to be proactive, I’ve been adding things to my weeknight schedule, deliberately creating some time out of the vortex of school. I noticed an upcoming event at the Portland Museum of Art and planned to attend, registering for a free one hour ekphrastic poetry class.

I called my daughter, Lydia, and asked if she wanted to meet for dinner and go to the museum beforehand. My husband opted to join us, and I looked forward to the event all week. A little breathing room.

Then I had one of the worst teaching days of my life. Enough said. I was desperate to escape into an evening out; however, by the end of that “terrible, horrible, no good very bad day”, I had no bandwidth for participating in a class. None. The idea of listening to someone talk about, well, anything, and then putting myself out there with some strangers was, in that moment, horrifying. It wasn’t an option.

So, after dinner, we walked over to the museum. I touched base with the volunteer at the desk to free up my space in the class in case someone else wanted to join. I, then, breathed a huge sigh of relief.

While Kurt wandered, Lydia and I decided to check out the erasure poetry center set up in the museum’s Great Hall. They had supplied printed pages and pencils. We reached through the crowded area to the materials, randomly selecting a page each, then settled in to create our poems. Here’s what I came up with:

When A Country Discards Empathy

no hint of human
empty
still and silent
distance visible
dissolving fidelity

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Janice Scully at her blog, Salt City Verse.

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PF: A different sort of blessing

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to spend time with my sister and most of her family. They were meeting up in Boston and we spontaneously decided to join them. We had such a lovely time. Our group went out for a delicious Indian dinner and there was a moment, a small one, overseen, that has stuck with me.

Even though we didn’t say grace before our meal

At the end of the table
at the restaurant
my nieces,
adults now,
smile and chat.

My sister glances at them
then turns to her husband
with a warm smile containing a world
of pregnancies, late nights,
worries and wonders.
So many shared experiences.
He returns her smile. 

The girls tilt back their heads, and
their laughter spills, golden,
into the night air.
Rising
like a blessing.

©Molly Hogan, draft

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Carol at her blog, The Apples in My Orchard.

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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!