The first week back after break is always a haul. Every day my alarm seems to go off earlier and earlier, but Friday seems to move progressively farther away. It’s a phenomenon that defies understanding.

Last week, when free time was abundant, I started fooling around with word group poems. Margaret Simon’s post inspired me so much that I purchased the Sandford Lyne book she mentioned. I haven’t read it all yet, but I’ve really enjoyed looking through his word combinations and toying around with them in my notebook. Lyne calls this “poem sketching.” It’s been the perfect activity to keep me writing on these bleary-eyed mornings.

Here’s one word group that took me in an unexpected direction:

flowers
memories
lonely
jar

I have few memories of flowers,
but one sister says,
“Remember how much she loved daisies?”
and another recalls planting marigolds with her
at the edges of the vegetable patch

Lonely amidst such remembrances
I surround myself with gardens and
fill the house with cut blossoms
tucked into the mason jars
my mother once filled with jams

©Molly Hogan, 2019

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Linda Baie at her wonderful blog, Teacher Dance. She’s sharing a fabulous spring poem that sprouted from a rich bed of anagrams.