Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you walked into it? I am one person who does this many times a day. My Poetry Friday friend, Donna Smith, sent a Facebook message and a reel that explored the topic of forgetting, and the importance of spoken words. Click the Facebook message above and listen to Kyle Cox's quick reel. Thank you, Donna, for sharing the Doorway Effect.
What's the fix for walking into a room and forgetting what you are looking for? According to Kyle Cox verbal tagging is key. Here is another reel by Kyle with an additional fix. Click here.
I'm ready. Before walking into a room, I will say out loud why I am entering. For instance, I left my room with several piles of paper. The electric heater was on. When I came back to continue working, I found the heater on because I forgot. At least I remembered that I had paperwork to do.
Since I read Donna's Facebook message, I have been reading as much as I can about the doorway effect. I am going to try the tips. Hopefully, I will remember why I enter a room, rather than just staring dumbfounded.
This year's Kidlithosphere Progressive Poem project started in 2012 by Irene Lathamto celebrate April's National Poetry Month with a community of writers. The poem project now led by Margaret Simon has evolved into a Choose-Your-Own-Poem-Adventure Progressive Poem. The fun began with Donna Smith who offered choice options with two different perspectives to continue the poem. Each poet on the list below continued the practice. Today, I am excited to choose one of the options Tara Smith offered.
Sweet violets shimmy, daffodils sway
along the wiregrass path to the lake. I carry a rucksack of tasty cakes and a banjo passed down from my gram. I follow the tracks of deer and raccoon and echo the call of a wandering loon. A whispering breeze joins in our song. and night melts into a rose gold dawn. Matt Forrest Essenwine are you ready? Envelope please...
My options are: Deep into nature's embrace, I fold. (Option A In the solemn silence of springtime (Option B)
I'm adding a digitized photo of a Virginia nature trail I walked with my granddaughter, Sierra. Perhaps, our little adventurer crossed a path like this one.
If you would like to follow the monthlong path the poem takes, see the contributors and the days they are adding to the Progressive Poem:
Unprecedented times. Weather switches from a dull gray to slivers of color. I look out my window, noticing some movement. A mother takes her child for a bike ride. Walkers cautiously walk apart from each other. Feral cats cuddle together on top of my outdoor bench. Spring has arrived Evening news brings grim reports for New York State. An invisible virus strikes out like a venomous snake spewing its toxin. Families cope in different ways. Mine paused last week on March 27, 2020, when Pope Francis addressed the world from St. Peter's Basilica. He offered hope for all to navigate the COVID19 crisis.
From his calming words, I created a poem.
Lift your days in prayer and quiet service- these are your
victorious weapons.
Know that faith begins when we are in need of salvation.
Pause, recognizing we need the Lord like ancient navigators needed the stars. God's strength reawakens solidarity and hope, giving strength to these hours.
Hush, silence stirs our hearts as the velvet darkness envelops us each night. It is the pause time when we give gratitude for family life and all the heroes who lift others each day with their quiet service. With faith, I cope during this crisis, hoping for renewal that Easter will bring shortly.
Thank you, poet friend, Donna Smith, for hosting Spiritual Journey Thursday this month who is looking forward to reading some "Joyful Stuff in Trying Times".
As an aficionado of antiquing and turn-of-the-20th-century traditions, I enjoy corresponding with friends from far away as people often did in the early 1900s. While I do not engage in this ritual as often in the past because of the digital age, I find it to be an important one. When Tabatha Yeatts started the Summer Poetry Swap, I became a fan. Swapping poetry with faraway friends deepens my relationships and brings joy. I was delighted with the news of my swapees when Tabatha notified me. My first poetry swap was for Donna Smith, my bold, Maine to Pennsylvania motorcyclist friend. One piece of the visual journal that I created for her is below.
Next, I was fortunate to be on the receiving end of the Summer Poetry Swap. I was surprised when Ruth Hersey, a friend residing in Haiti, notified me to be on the lookout for something in the mail. I shared Ruth's bountiful garden of blossoms and poem at last week's Poetry Friday post.
At the end of last week, I was surprised again. I not only created a swap for Linda Baie in Denver, but I received a package from her. Linda called us swapees and that term has stuck with me. Below is the collection of poetic offerings that LInda gathered together for a remarkable swap.
I am sure that you will agree that this is a beautiful collection of keepsakes! Upon opening the package, I found a gorgeously-designed photo haiku card from Robyn Hood Black's Etsy collection with a personal note that made me smile. There was an adorable pocket for the handcrafted card and the original poem Linda created. This pocket will be my traveling companion during professional development workshops when I share the power of poetry with teachers.
Linda's Opposing View poem that she wrote is one to ponder. Just the other night, while at an oudoor concert, I was wishing that summer nights would continue to linger longer. Do you see the little umbrella that accompanied the card? It is a reminder of the bright, scattered umbrellas that line the shores of Long Island beaches each summer.
The journal Linda sent has delicate faded flowered pages to write upon. I am not sure that she knew I always have loved pressed flowers. When I first looked at the beautiful journal, I thought that since I am such a messy writer with scraps and snippets of thoughts and crossed-out words all over I would not want to destroy the treasured gift. Then, I thought I could make the journal my special Sierra notebook for all the poems I write for my granddaughter. "In every moment there clings the sweetness of a faded flower." What an endearing thought to remind me of nature in all its stages of seasonal delight.
Also included in the package was a poetry book, When We Were Very, Very Young by A.A. Milne, that will become my Grandma read aloud. As I browsed through the pages, I found a poem, "Sand-Between-the-Toes," that reminds me of summers on Long Island. Tonight, as we traveled to a new beach on the north shore of Long Island before the theater, my family and I found a coarser type of sand that filled my sandals with a gritty mix. I laughed as I tried to discard the sand that lodged between my toes.
What Linda Baie offered in her swap will entertain me throughout the summer and into the year. Summer has a special spot in my heart as Linda knows. Her swap was handpicked and handcrafted to make my summer days brighter.
Linda plans on sharing what I sent her in a future Poetry Friday post.
I have one more swap to engage in and I have been already been collecting ideas. Stay tuned for that reveal. In the meantime, if you have poetic offerings for my #EmbraceableSummer Gallery collection, please send them my way to share all the ways to embrace the summer season.
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The Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted this week by my friend Margaret Simon at her blogsite, Reflections on the Teche. While cleaning out her parents' home and helping them transition to a retirement home, she found some items that sparked the creation of a poem that has depth, meaning, and a beautiful image in its closing line.
Being in the creativity zone is such a wonder-filled experience! Sparks fly; mind races; thoughts pass by in streams of bright-colored digital inspirations. When I start creating, I am lost in time, transfixed until I suddenly look up. "Oops! I am almost late for ..."
The zone is in a wonder space, a creativity playground. It is not a fancy place. Unlike a child's playground, any spot will do that has a place to write, create, and revise. Digital tools, a computer, and iPhone are necessities in my wonder space. In addition, fancy paper, colored pens, and a glue gun are tucked into my literacy toolbox for any spontaneous DIY projects. I shared my wonder space with grad student teachers last week at my ELA Summer Institute. With a bit of passionate prompting, they entered the zone to create their digital designs and digipoetry. You can see what they created while in the zone here. Giving and receiving is part of the creative process. Beside designing summer poetry swaps for Donna Smith and Linda Baie, I have been inspired to create digipoetry while observing nature. A couple of days ago my family took a quick jaunt to the beach. Our stay was short for the afternoon heat was rising and we noticed a dramatic difference in the sky. From gloriously bright to cloudy gray, it changed its look and sent us off trudging through the sand back to the car.
For the Embraceable Summer Gallery collection
Being in the zone, means that there are other poet colleagues there as well, creating in their wonder spaces. A couple of weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised by an email from Ruth Hersey. A postcard arrived but it was not from Haiti. Ruth was visiting family in Kentucky where she was visiting family and decided to create a summer poetry swap for me as part of the exchange started by Tabatha Yeatts. On the back of a serene picture postcard, James Archambeault's KENTUCKY, Ruth wrote the following poem.
Today, I am joining the Poetry Friday Roundup at Carol Wilcox's blog site, Carol's Corner. For those who have puppy love, you will love to see 8-week-old Rooney and the poem she wrote about him.
Rainstorm, while crossing the Verrazano Bridge, 2017
Rain is not a unique sight here on Long Island this season. Since we missed April showers in abundance, June is bustin' out all over with rainstorms. But this morning, the interjection of loud, reverberating thunder claps startled everyone in the house and sent us racing for the windows.
Please view the following nature photos that illustrate Mother Nature's changeable nature from a day of sunshine to the next day filled with rain. These photos and poems will be at the hashtag, #SpringSplendorGallery, on Twitter waiting for the design of the future gallery.
Rainstorm in Pittsburgh by Jessica Bigi
After the storm in Lexington, Kentucky by Ruth Hersey
Rainbow in Maine by Donna Smith
At the End of the Rainbow by Molly Hogan, Maine
Rain is not just happening here in the USA. There is a hashtag, #rain, that shares photos from around the globe.
To validate my thoughts about the rain, I quote my poet friend who experienced the rains during a recent stateside visit to her family in Kentucky.
"This has been the Aprilest June ever." -Ruth Hersey
There is tranquility in the house now that the rains have quieted down. May Langston Hughes' poem and my digital artwork of Long Island fill your day with peace.
I am joining Two Writing Teachers for Slice of Life Tuesdaywhere I found a digital inspiration that seems to fit in with my post. I was filled today with the shock of thunder but now my neighborhood is filled with the lulling chirps of the birds once again.
"By wisdom, a house is built, and through understanding, it is established. Through knowledge, its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures."
-Proverbs 24:3-
For the past month, I have been trying to declutter my house based on the wisdom of Marie Kondo, Japanese organizing consultant. I have started to look through shelves, closets, and attic to determine the worth of saved items. While doing so I linger in the memory attached to each object and then, make a decision on whether the piece still brings joy. If not, I place the item in a donation box or in the throwaway bin, letting go of any sense of loss I may have.
For several days, I have been reflecting on this month's Spiritual Journey 1st Thursday topic, "Home is where the heart is," offered by host Donna Smith. I was struck by another scripture reading, "The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock." - Matthew 7:25
How many times have I turned to faith, believing that the family foundation would withstand challenges? How many times have I relied on the bonding of hearts to bring joy back into the home again?
Understanding that it is not the structure of a house that brings hearts together leads to the concept of home. My home has been adorned with a tapestry of invisible love that filters the drama of the outside world and withstands the turmoil of inner struggles. It is my home not the house that becomes a sacred place of refuge and warmth, bringing hearts together and strengthening bonds. Do you feel the same way?
Listen to Elvis sing his tender song, Home Is Where The Heart Is.
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I now join this month's Spiritual Journey 1st Thursday's discussion with Donna Smith at Mainely Write.
The above poem is my attempt to write a "skinny", a poem of eleven lines in the following format: The 1st and 11th lines can be any length. The 11th and last line must be repeated using the same words from the 1st line and opening line, however, they can be rearranged. The 2nd, 6th, and 10th lines must be identical. All the lines in this form, except for the 1st and last lines, must be comprised of only one word.
In the glare of the midday sun, we travelers peacefully walk along a winding Virginia pathway, canopied by towering trees left leafless from autumn's parting. Only faint sounds of children are heard from a distant playground when suddenly, the sky opens to a swoosh of flight. Two stealthy hawks dart upward showing their soaring prowess while an owl quietly rests. Nature holds court in its sanctuary of stillness as early winter enters.
Many thanks to my poet friends, Linda Mitchellwho wrote a haibun in response to one written by Laura Shovan. A haibun is a poetic form that combines a prose poem with a haiku. In this sequence, I focused on autumn's departure, winter's arrival, and one of the nature trails that are prevalent in the Reston, Virginia neighborhood where my daughter, son-in-law and grandbaby live. My one word hope has followed me throughout this year and especially during the month of December as a group of poets have written under the hashtag #haikuforhope. Since I missed Poetry Friday last week because of pre-Christmas travel to Virginia, I look forward to joining our host Donna Smith this week and reading what my colleagues have for the last Poetry Friday of 2018.
I will be offering my Abundant Autumn Gallery to social media soon. Stay tuned!
