A Day to Remember Forever

Did you hear the bell ring for the 9/11 fallen heroes yesterday? 24 years ago, New York City first responders, police, firemen, and newscasters flooded the streets and the media with traumatic news. People ran from their buildings under a shower of dust and darkness. Cement covered the streets as people tried to find a passage over the Brooklyn Bridge. While I did not witness all of this in person, I felt the weight of fear and grief as did the Village of Rockville Centre in Long Island, New York, where I lived. 

Forty-nine people in my village died during the 9/11 catastrophe. The Patch news named it the "deadliest terror attack on American soil". Of those people, Cantor Fitzgerald, American financial services firm, lost the most lives, one of whom was the mother of my daughter's senior high school friend. Because their friend suffered such a loss, my daughter and her two friends organized a candlelight vigil parade. Three hundred people gathered together. Tears flowed throughout this silent passage from the high school througout the village. For a long while life was worrisome. Memorials were erected so people could remember that horrible day in 2001 and be hopeful about the future. 

I remember September 11th each year and so does the world. Families  gather together to honor their fallen loved ones. A bell tolls like the sound of grief. Names of 9/11 victims are read as tears flow like water. Now life continues with a different thought. It is the time to bind the world together as a connected global society. Rid the world of hatred and unkindness to find peace.

September 11th

unpredicable hatred 

swept across the sky

New York City was attacked

fear and sorrow opened their channels

to all fallen heroes

draft CVarsalona, 9/11/2025, cherita

Listen to Fallen Heroes (9-11)

Hope for Tomorrow

Bind the human race into

a connected global society

with hatred extinguished

and unity established.

©CVarsalona, 2025 quick write draft

Thank you to author, poet, and educator, Rose Cappelli, for hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup today. She added Mary Oliver's poem that can be a call to action.

Spring's Woodside Beauty

“Come with me into the woods where spring is

advancing, as it does, no matter what,

not being singular or particular, but one

of the forever gifts, and certainly visible."

-Mary Oliver, Dog Songs 

Come join me as I share nature's woodside beauty in springtime with 
nature photos from Virginia and Maine.



I also created a Golden Shovel poem using Mary Oliver's opening line,
Come with me into the woods where spring is.

Little one travels the trail "Come,"
nature calls softly with
her lilting voice. Sierra turns to me
running deeper down into 
leaves seasoned by wear, following the
twists and turns marked by woods.
We stop to notice where
the birds coo their spring
song because that is where peace is.

©CV, 2020

Ah, stepping softly back into my neighborhood where Spring is a forever gift and one of the main characters in my upcoming #NatureNurtures2020 Gallery. You can see the growing collection of poetry goodness at Nature Nurtures! Padlet but if you do not see what you offered, then please add your artistic expression.

I hope you enjoyed today's mini-meditation (as poet Laura Purdie Salas calls these mini-galleries).

Now turn your attention to the Poetry Friday Roundup at Mary Lee Hahn's blog here. This week she is offering us The Reading Without Walls Challenge, Library of Congress "The Life of a Poet" session featuring poet Marilyn Chin, and adds two poems by Chin. She is also inviting everyone to join her as she facilitates the NCTE webinar conversation with Marilyn Chin in conjunction with the Library of Congress on June 11th. You can find out more information here. 

Invitation to Create Winter Digitals

The news flashes across the screen. Winter storms are attracting a great deal of attention but it is not expected that my little corner of the world will turn into a winter wonderland this weekend. I will rely on others to capture the beauty of the season. In the meantime, I imagine the sights and sounds of neighborhood after soft crystals twirl and dance in pixie-like fashion before gently folding into the earth as layered blankets.

Still wondering, I decided to transform original photos, the one above by Abdiel Ibarra from Unsplash and the image of the barren trees below that I that took during a past winter season. While layering and experimenting with digital tools, I created pieces of whimsical digital art that welcome winter into my thoughts.

I invite you to create alongside me for a seasonal gallery of artistic expressions.

Observe nature this winter. Capture the sights and sounds of the season through nature photography, family fun photos, image poems, #InstaPoetry, #haikuforhope poems, inspirational quotes, drawings, musical compositions, or any other creative digital format. 

Reminders:

• All students and adults in and outside the Long Island, New York region are invited to reflect upon the winter season. 
• Sign each digital that should be no larger than 450 pixels with your name and location so you may receive proper accreditation.
• Offerings will be collected at my digital repository, #WinteringFun, on Twitter (@cvarsalona) and at my cvarsalona gmail account. You can also find me on Instagram as cvarsalona and FaceBook as Carol Varsalona.

I invite you to have fun capturing different perspectives of winter with your family and friends for my winter global gallery of artistic expressions.  The deadline for submissions is March 18, 2019.

Embrace the winter challenge! Be creative and expressive!

The title of this year's winter gallery is under consideration. I have looked at many different themes starting with Wintering Fun but the one that keeps spinning in front of me is Winter's Embrace. What do you think? 

Below are the tiles of the previous winter galleries that you can view on my blog site, Beyond LiteracyLink. 

Enjoy being creative and sharing your work globally.

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Are you wondering when the Abundant Autumn Gallery will be unveiled?  I am still in the designing phase because of multiple technical issues, so stay tuned. 

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The Poetry Friday'Roundup is hosted this week by Tricia Stohr-Hunt at her blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect. Tricia is honoring the memory of a great contemporary poet, Mary Oliver who has passed on. 

In tribute to Mary Oliver's amazing talent to weave words together to create a vivid visual and provide a deeper look into nature and life, I offer an excerpt from her poem,  "First Snow".

Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain — not a single
answer has been found —

~Mary Oliver~

excerpted from American Primitive

Morning Wonder

“I Go Down To The Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.” 
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings

Morning Wonder #1

Morning Wonder #2

It's #International Dot Day-Let's Celebrate!

Morning Wonder #3

The fabulous author team of Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell capture the essence of #poetry love in their newest book, Just You Wait, a unique text in verse for middle school students. The book, a mini-poetry activity/journal/notebook allows students to become familiar with poetry as they learn alongside three delightful characters. Each of the 12 powerpacks introduce a power play activity, an outside poem, a response poem from one of the three characters of the book, a mentor text, and Power2You writing prompt. This book makes poetry engaging and accessible to all tween/teen readers. 

When Janet graciously offered to send me a copy of the book, she also sent me a second one for the regional meeting of literacy leaders on Long Island that I facilitated this morning. Since I am excited about the new book as a learning tool, it was easy to talk about its usage in the ELA classroom. All educators at the meeting received an information sheet provided by Janet and Sylvia and one lucky administrator won You Just Wait and another The Poetry Friday Anthology of Celebrations. 

Morning Wonder #4

I am always eager to try out a new photo app that is recommended so I went into my store of nature photography and found one that is quite appropriate. I am leaving for a family trip to Las Vegas where the temperatures will be soaring into the nineties so summer heat is still on my mind. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy morning wonders. 

Stay tuned for the unveiling of Summerscapes when I return from my mini-cation. I most likely will be off the grid this week while traveling. 

Now to join the Poetry Friday Round-up, I turn to my colleague, Michelle H. Barnes at Today's Little Ditty. Michelle has created a septercet for Jane Yolen's septercet challenge.

Find out more about Poetry Friday HERE.

Poetically Speaking

There is wonder in words as they combine into thoughts. I call this merging, word weaving. One word intertwines with another until a finely crafted tapestry is created. When I happened upon two events in the world of poetry this week, Random Acts of Poetry Day (October 7th) and National Poetry Day (October 8th), I stopped, wondered, and began to weave words into poems. Twitter hashtags, such as #NationalPoetryDay, #poetrydayuk, #poetrydayuk, and #thinkofapoem, were venues open to poetically speak so I decided to fully immerse myself in the fall season and create.

In hopes of finding the beauty of the season to write about, I walked local paths observing natural objects. From what I collected, I crafted autumn decorations, adorning the inside and outside of my house with seasonal visuals. In between the DIY projects, I wove words to celebrate my love for poetry. Then, I digitalized expressions of the natural beauty and sent them out via Twitter as part of Random Acts of Poetry Day with hopes of brightening others' lives. Beside those acts, I virtually celebrated poetry with young students in Texas who showcased their work at a Poetry Cafe. I even went so far as to design an invitation with a poem for the finding fall gathering at my house this weekend. 

While becoming one with words, I joined hundreds of tweachers and tweeps who celebrated poetic language this week. This led me to one tweet showcasing Mary Oliver reading her poetry. One video led to another. A NPR interview caught my interest and provided me with a fountain of thoughts to satisfy my thirst for beautifully crafted words.

As Oliver talked about her fondness of the natural world and how she finds new words, I felt as though she was reaching out to me. 

I pay close attention to things, see new details...I love the choreography of the poem on the page. To find a new word you have to be alert.

Mary Oliver's advice will continue to inspire me to find fall this season as I design Autumn's Palette Gallery. I do hope you will write alongside me for a global gallery of artistic expressions. One digital expression to provide a perspective on the majesty of autumn's colors is all it takes to bring the natural world to the page. 

Please visit the Poetry Friday Round-up here. It is being hosted by Laura Purdie Salas, an inspired colleague. Laura is showcasing one of her two poems that have been included  in an inspired book of poetry, the Book of Nature Poetry, edited by J.Patrick Lewis with National Geographic.