Sarah Donovan is our host for Day 30 of VerseLove and our host of this space each month for writers who crave togetherness each month as we come together to celebrate our words and thoughts ~to share the joy of writing. She helps meet a deep need in each of us. I adore the prompt today, and I ran for my journal from 2019 when I saw the topic. I thought back to the first year I participated in VerseLove and looked for that first prompt that changed the trajectory of my life from grief over my mother’s death to connection with others whose pain shone through their heart holes, too, who showed me how to use the sunspots to write and heal. To every writer who shares the journey, thank you for all of the inspiration you bring. This morning, my grandson writes along with me as I revise my first-ever VerseLove poem, Blackberry Winter.
Blackberry Winter, Revisited
It’s a Blackberry Winter I wrote in 2019
beginning a poem about all the good things
later this morning, my first grandson
will make elderberry jam toast
plus cheese omelettes
on the Lodge cast iron griddle
wearing my apron
(he doesn’t know about the apron yet)
but first: raindrops on rooftop, fresh coffee,
wi-fi (stronger than coffee, finally), computer charged,
comfy chair, whisper-soft pajamas,
thoughts ready to materialize
three schnoodles tussling on grandson’s
sleepover mattress as we write together
in the living room
words forming on pages: his pen, my keyboard
to the first #VerseLove prompt of 2019 from Sarah:
….the good things in our lives….
there are those who bring
more warmth than raindrops and coffee,
more comfort than chairs and pajamas,
more joy than words ~
ancestors whose cast iron presence
and apron strings linger in kitchens
hugging us tight about the middle
and those we ancestor ~ grandchildren
who write right next to us
about all the good things in our lives
on this elderberry toast and cheese omelette morning.
– Kim Haynes Johnson, April 2, 2019 and 4/30/2023
Common Threads 