Category: Literature

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Second Friday Retirement Adventures – November 2026

Retirement officially began for me August 1st, so each second and fourth Friday, I reflect on the first year of retirement in two-week windows and what it’s like in this new chapter of life. This idea of retirement reflection was sparked when members of my writing communities and personal friends asked me how I would spend my time and if I thought I would get bored. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies, adventures, and routines as well.

My first item on the list was learning to play Mahjong to exercise my brain, and my list seems now to resemble seedlings that turn into plants with shoots that grow off in different directions and keep growing like hostas and irises and mint, taking over the whole back yard. Each new experience uncovers a whole uncharted world to discover and explore.

My late father said this about retirement: You don’t retire FROM something, you retire TO something, and you’ll be busier than you’ve ever been. He was right, and I love doing what I want to do when I want to do it and having the flexibility to travel and engage in new hobbies – or stay home in comfortable clothes and enjoy a more relaxed pace on the Johnson Funny Farm.

Here are 52-62 of the most recent things I’ve enjoyed in my first three months of retirement, plus a bullet list of 1-51 previous adventures – and I’m not even four full months into this new gig.

62. Play Mahjong in a Mahjong hall on an automatic shuffling table – The Velvet Wind in Asheville, NC offers group play and has both automatic and regular tables. It was a treat to play here, and the tiles were huge (great for aging eyes)! I don’t even know how to act anymore after such a treat. My mouth fell open like a kid in a candy shop. Watch this shuffler!

Dear Santa, I’ve been a good girl this year!

61. Play Mahjong in a mansion – Silvermont Mansion and Park is a community center on the National Registry of Historic Places in Brevard, NC. It was built in 1915 as a residence, but now it is a thriving hub that schedules events such as Reader’s Theater, meeting spaces, open studio for artists, basketball, mahjong and other games, and more. I called ahead to ask if we could play, and Brenda told us to come on and they’d shuffle us in. I played in a mansion last Monday!

Bethany and I were playing the same line.

60. Taking last minute turns to discover what I might have otherwise missed – My sister in law wanted to visit Brevard College, but our time ran short, so we drove past it but not through it. On the way home, I spotted Furman University up ahead on the right, and made a surprise decision to turn in and drive through. We were speechless at its beauty, so I parked the car. We got out and walked through the rose garden, saw the fountain and bell tower, and even visited the chapel when a student ambled in and started playing the majestic organ. You can hear a moment of awe in the video below.

59. Hiking in to see the waterfalls of Brevard, NC – I hiked short distances (and I do mean hike – we had to climb inclines) to find two of the many waterfalls around Brevard, Land of the Waterfalls. My sister in law and I were able to see Hooker Falls and High Falls on a recent trip, and we’ll return to see the others once we’ve caught our breath.

High Falls
Hooker Falls

58. Seeing the White Squirrels of Brevard, NC – I spotted them! And they are most entertaining and anything but a hallucinogenic mushroom myth! A fellow postcard poet who lives near Brevard gave me tips on where to find them, and I not only did I get to see the white squirrels, I got to meet my fellow poet turned friend on the trip as well. We had lunch at the old Woolworth Walk diner and had our picture taken in front of the postcards in Malaprops! You can see the white squirrel scamper right up to me in the video below.

57. Book Store Shopping Trip – I took a trip with my sister-in-law to Brevard, NC to visit bookstores as we traveled and spent time in western North Carolina. We visited Highland Books in Brevard, NC; Malaprops in Asheville, NC; As the Page Turns in Traveler’s Rest, SC; 2nd & Charles in Greenville, SC, and also Mr. K’s Used Bookstore in Greenville, SC (the largest used bookstore in the state). We used technology to route our trip based on the bookstores that would be open at the time of our travel along our route home.

56. Designing and Creating Porch Goose Outfits – Porch geese are all the rage right now in outdoor decor. I recently sent a pair to my brother and sister in law as birthday gifts with fishing outfits for their dock on Lake Hickory at their North Carolina home. It’s a common practice in some second homes on St. Simons Island that if the owners are in town, they raise their personal flag on coming and going so that local friends have a secret code for who’s in the house. My brother and sister don’t have flags on their lake house (yet), but I thought the lake equivalent might be geese on the dock. While I don’t have a lot of company for porch decor here so deep in the country, I got a seven inch coffee station goose and made some outfits for it. As I was sewing, I thought of my granddaughters and their love of fashion and ended up packing a 7″ goose and sending them a box full of clothes. According to their mom, they are obsessed with it and taking turns dressing it. And I’m still sewing and naming geese outfits.

The Thelma Lou

55. Creative Kitchen endeavors – I was going along in my days, happy to bring a plate of Halloween Oreos to the Mahjoween gathering a friend planned, but she reminded me that I was capable of more creativity in the kitchen and that I should resist temptation to settle for store-bought cookies. The porch geese witch hats inspired the treats I made: chocolate covered Bugles with small cookie wafers and a peanut butter chip as a hat buckle. Retirement brings time to get in the kitchen and experiment with food creations I never was able to pull off when I was working every day.

54. Oystershell and Sanddollar decoupage – I’ve been decoupaging pressed flowers and leaves, and so I’ve added tissue paper and napkins to the lineup. I’ve made oystershells and sand dollars to hang on the Christmas tree. Back in the 1970s, before we deemed it a bad thing to decorate using sea creatures that were once living, my mother used sand dollars to hang all over the tree with red ribbons. I found the box of them as we were cleaning out, and I’ve repurposed them. Since I can’t bring them back to life, I can breathe new life into them and continue to celebrate the lives they lived in the ocean.

53. Online Book Discussion of The Calamity Club – Kathryn Stockett, author of The Calamity Club, made an appearance as part of the Bookaccino virtual author event lineup to discuss her recent bestselling novel. I was so happy to be able to attend and take part in the discussion on the heels of just finishing the book.

52. Dumping the RV – For the first time ever, I dumped the gray and black tanks all by myself. I’m preparing to be able to take part in some solo Girl Camper events, and this less desirable part of travel is a necessary part to be able to join up with other women campers and take part in those opportunities to meet new people and see new places. I’ve done the duty!

Here are the previous things I’ve added to my list of 100 Things I’m Enjoying in Retirement. I’ve reversed the order, going backwards in time to the beginning.

51. Kindred Spirits October Book Club

50. Watercolor Poetry Postcards

49. Attending two Stafford Challenge Guest Poet Zooms

48. Open Write with my EthicalELA writing community

47. Making the Perfect Cup of Tea to drink while making mental notes about Things that Don’t Suck

46. Daytime Movies

45. Decoupaging Candles and Bookmarks with Wildflowers

44. Plant Pressing

43. Virtual Author Reading for Time in the Landscape

42. Author Reading for Anna Roseboro’s Book Study

41. Indie Bookstore Shopping

40. Dock Time on Jackson Lake in Georgia

39. Adopt a Dog

38. Train Ride to See Fall Foliage

37. Cabin for a Birthday Celebration in North Georgia

36. Fall Baking

35. Hosting Open Write

34. Kindred Spirits September Book Club

33. Mahjong in Blairsville, Georgia

32. Daytripping for Lunch and Small Town Adventuring

31. Hiking the Appalachian Trail

30. Camping at Vogel State Park

29. Lunch with Friends

28. Almost-Birthday Pedicures with my Sister-in-Law

27. Mahjongg Regular Group Formation

26. Stafford Challenge Writing Workshop

25. Stafford Challenge Small Group Zoom Meetings

24. Dolly Parton Tribute at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee

23. Labor Day Camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia

22. Watercolor Postcards

21. Monthly Small Postcard Poetry Group

20. Office Cleanout

19. Re-Vamping the Reading Room

18. Barnes and Noble Virtual Book Club

17. Kindred Spirits Book Club

16. Novel Writing with Nick

15. Lounge Pants Spree

14. Porch Sitting

13. Fabric Postcards

12. Zinnia Arrangement

11. Mahjong 102 and Free Play

10. Wayfaring to Margaritaville for a concert

9. Wayfaring to FDR for camping

8. Cascadia Postcard Poetry Fest

7. Summer Reading Poetry Book Club

6. Local Bookstore Book Club

5. Friends of the Library Book Fair

4. Yoga

3. Morning Walking

2. Rag Quilting

1. Mahjong 101

And I will continue watering seedlings of adventure and discovery to see what all grows!

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Worlds of Wonder

One live book group organizer I’ve discovered recently that offers fabulous events is Bookaccino. You can sign up to get their newsletters to learn about their author talks and other webinars here.

I was blessed to attend the talk with Kathryn Stockett, author of The Calamity Club, on Wednesday night. Having just finished the book in the past week, I was thrilled that at the time of the discussion, the story was still fresh on my mind, and the characters unforgettable. As is so often the case, the ending of a great book never really coincides with the turning of its last page, but I was blessed that it did this time.

Three top things I took from this discussion:

  1. Kathryn Stockett does extensive research on the time frame setting of her novels, and she likes to use characters’ voices to call attention to the social issues and the BS that needs to be called out.
  2. She will not be writing a sequel to this book, preferring to leave the characters as they are for the reader to determine what happens to them next. There will be a screenplay.
  3. She reads extensively, and was inspired tremendously by Eudora Welty, particularly the short stories “Why I live at the P.O.,” “The Petrified Man,” and the novel Delta Wedding. She also is a fan of the memoirist Mary Carr.

I’m rereading some excerpts of Gladys Taber’s books and also Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews. There will be Eudora Welty’s works appearing in my TBR Pile.

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4th Friday Retirement Adventures – October 2026

Retirement officially began for me August 1st, so each second and fourth Friday, I reflect on the first year of retirement in two-week windows and what it’s like in this new chapter of life. This idea of retirement reflection was sparked when members of my writing communities and personal friends asked me how I would spend my time and if I thought I would get bored. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies and routines as well.

My late father said this about retirement: You don’t retire FROM something, you retire TO something, and you’ll be busier than you’ve ever been. He was right, and I love doing what I want to do when I want to do it and having the flexibility to travel and engage in new hobbies – or stay home in comfortable clothes and enjoy more relaxed pace on the Johnson Funny Farm.

Here are eight of the most recent things I’ve enjoyed in my first three months of retirement:

51. Kindred Spirits October Book Club – We met at our favorite coffee shop last night to discuss Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth and The Songteller by Dolly Parton. We talked about the power of story, the refusal of women to be thrust into a particular identity determined by the world, and the perceptions of aging women in terms of freedoms and restraints. These two books paired nicely as nonfiction and fiction text selections. Our book club has remained six strong, and we’re nearing the end of our second year together.

50. Watercolor Poetry Postcards – One of my favorite things to do is enjoy a watercolor painting day a couple of times a month. I like the watercolor workbooks by Emily Lex because she simplifies the process of creating art. Recently, I’ve discovered the YouTube Easy Design painters, who take viewers step by step through techniques. This month, I created postcards for my November postcard poetry challenge and also Bible bookmarks for Christmas gift bag items collected by a faith-based women’s recovery program in a neighboring state.

49. Attending two Stafford Challenge Guest Poet Zooms – C. Marie Fuhrman was the October Guest Poet on the Stafford Challenge monthly lineup of poets that we get to write with throughout the year. She used poetry by Joy Harjo to inspire us to write our own poems in our one hour Zoom session for October. Dr. Deborah Grayson kicked off a Poetry as a Healing Art series this month and brought spectacular prompts for getting us geared up for writing. I always look forward to these monthly evening events – I gather my notebook and pen, make a cup of tea, and log in to see the faces of other poets from all across the globe as we write together.

48. Open Write with my EthicalELA writing community – I’ve belonged to the Ethicalela writing community for nine years now, and each month we write poetry together for a few days out of the month (excluding April, when we write poetry together every day in honor of the Bard’s Birthday month – a/k/a National Poetry Month). This month, I wrote four poems inspired by prompts shared by rotating hosts throughout our writing community. You can check out the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com and click on Open Write to see what this community offers!

47. Making the Perfect Cup of Tea to drink while making mental notes about Things that Don’t Suck– For Christmas in 2025, I got one of those electric tea kettles that has the Digital Touch feature to make certain kinds of tea at their optimal temperatures. In Blue Ridge, Georgia in the fall of 2025, I picked up two tea mugs with the metal steeping strainer that lets us steep loose tea leaves directly in our cups for maximum coagulation with the water. When my late father returned from a mission trip to China in 2014, he’d brought back loose tea and given us a masterclass in how to steep it. It’s a retirement treat to be able to sit back with a cup and reflect on the day joyfully with at least the work demands removed from all the bad things happening in the world.

46. Daytime Movies – It’s always been a weekend thing or an evening thing for us unless we were on a break, but being able to take off in the day to go see a movie is a guilty pleasure!

45. Decoupaging Candles and Bookmarks with Wildflowers – It will take about 6 weeks for my own pressed plants and flowers to be ready for projects in the traditional plant press, and I don’t own a microwave plant press, so I found a Utah-based flower farm as a source for pressed wildflowers and ordered a selection based on birthday month flowers. These are the plants I’m using currently to create decoupaged candles and bookmarks. It’s fun to feel the energy of creativity and see the beautiful transformation of candles as I work. I also love how something as simple as a bookmark and a touch of greenery and some flower petals can create the loveliest page markers.

44. Plant Pressing – I hauled out the old plant press and gathered wildflowers and greenery from all across the Johnson Funny Farm, including my sister-in-law’s zinnia gardens. I pressed plants for using in decoupage projects.

Here are the previous things I’ve added to my list of 100 Things I’m Enjoying in Retirement. I’ve reversed the order, going backwards in time to the beginning.

43. Virtual Author Reading for Time in the Landscape

42. Author Reading for Anna Roseboro’s Book Study

41. Indie Bookstore Shopping

40. Dock Time on Jackson Lake in Georgia

39. Adopt a Dog

38. Train Ride to See Fall Foliage

37. Cabin for a Birthday Celebration in North Georgia

36. Fall Baking

35. Hosting Open Write

34. Kindred Spirits September Book Club

33. Mahjong in Blairsville, Georgia

32. Daytripping for Lunch and Small Town Adventuring

31. Hiking the Appalachian Trail

30. Camping at Vogel State Park

29. Lunch with Friends

28. Almost-Birthday Pedicures with my Sister-in-Law

27. Mahjongg Regular Group Formation

26. Stafford Challenge Writing Workshop

25. Stafford Challenge Small Group Zoom Meetings

24. Dolly Parton Tribute at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee

23. Labor Day Camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia

22. Watercolor Postcards

21. Monthly Small Postcard Poetry Group

20. Office Cleanout

19. Re-Vamping the Reading Room

18. Barnes and Noble Virtual Book Club

17. Kindred Spirits Book Club

16. Novel Writing with Nick

15. Lounge Pants Spree

14. Porch Sitting

13. Fabric Postcards

12. Zinnia Arrangement

11. Mahjong 102 and Free Play

10. Wayfaring to Margaritaville for a concert

9. Wayfaring to FDR for camping

8. Cascadia Postcard Poetry Fest

7. Summer Reading Poetry Book Club

6. Local Bookstore Book Club

5. Friends of the Library Book Fair

4. Yoga

3. Morning Walking

2. Rag Quilting

1. Mahjong 101

The 100-Things-To-Do Retirement List Tanka

only twelve weeks in

at 51 list items

and still going strong…..

maybe this is why they say

folks are never busier…..

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October 2026 Day 2 of Open Write


Today’s host of The Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Joel Garza, who inspires us to write a Cherita poem. You can read his full prompt here.

Joel shares, “My studies taught me that many poetic forms winnow down in length as they ramp up in meaning. A sonnet’s couplet, a sestina’s envoi, a haiku’s closing pivot, a villanelle’s quatrain – you get the idea & the impact: As the form gets smaller, the idea feels more potent, more provocative. There are exceptions. Exceptions like the cherita.”

I love narrative poems, and Garza reminds us that these are, essentially, stories in poetic form. He explains the process:

Remember that the cherita is a story. Aim for a tale that you need to tell (or maybe a tale that you’ve never told). Be as direct as possible in welcoming your reader – one line only. 

As you develop the story, be deliberate and succinct. Two lines only for this middle stanza. 

Finally, resolve with a comparatively expansive meditation on the meaning or mystery of this story. Knock yourself out — A whole three lines!

One line. Two lines. Then, three lines.

Jay

I looked to the directions, but I only needed the final stanza to tell my story. So I followed my gut and wrote what was inside.

The Rescue

my heart was heavy with dog loss grief

I contacted the rescue: make a good match

Meet Jay.

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Indie Bookstore Shopping

I’ve never met a bookstore I didn’t like, so in this chapter of life where there is more time to read, I added Independent Bookstore Shopping to the list of things of delights that retirement would bring time to enjoy. I knew this would go in my green notebook list of things to do after visiting Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon in June. They call themselves “fiercely independent,” and if you read a little about the history of this amazing store and the philosophy about reading that guides its management, you know both the the power and the risk of the break from big box corporate bookstores. Take, for example, the poetry section. Those sections are usually what I would consider the weakest link in a bookstore. But not in Powell’s. They have several sections of floor-to-ceiling titles of poetry books, and the best curated collection I have ever seen. In the eastern United States, Malaprops in Asheville, North Carolina gets the highest mark for a poetry curation. I’m on a quest to find those that stack up to the gold standard of Powell’s.

Since I would live and breathe reading if it were possible to do, I like to get as close to it as I can and inhale deeply, taking in the feel of the books, the smell of the shop, the vibe of the readers considering what they want to read next. On a recent North Georgia Mountain trip, my sister in law and I visited indie bookstores in Ellijay and Blue Ridge and also in Copper Basin, Tennessee. My favorite moments are when someone asks complete strangers if anyone has read a particular book. That happened in Copper Fox Books in Blue Ridge, Georgia recently, and we helped steer a reader to Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth as her next book after chatting preferred genres. It’s a lovely feeling to be a book matchmaker.

I’m always eager to hear about favorite bookstores. If you have any, please share them. My dream trip would be adding bookstores to a wine tour. I’d get on a bus and go wine tasting but in between all the wine tastings, the bus would stop at bookstores. I wonder what books I would add to my library if there were such a tour – – and whether it would be poetry and novels or whether I’d branch out and surprise myself with some new genres when I arrived home and checked the boxes to see what all I’d bought!

in Copper Fox Books

there’s a special kind of air ~

you can breathe reading

Seen in a bookstore in Copper Basin, Tennessee
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What Will Tomorrow Hold?

For the month of September, Rattle’s ekphrastic poetry image was the piece below by Frahn Koerner. Find more about the artist here.

neon colored woman moving through tears in a fabric

What Will Tomorrow Hold?

one foot in

the portal of now

a fluttering

of new life within

stirs, forms,

timestamps passage

into a future realm

what will tomorrow hold?

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September 2026 Kindred Spirits Book Club

Five of our six Kindred Spirits Book Club members, September 2026

Our Kindred Spirits

more than just a small book club

we share heart and mind

Each month, the Kindred Spirits Book Club with a six-strong membership meets to discuss our monthly pick. We’re nearing the end of our second full year of reading together, and there’s a deep soul-knit sisterhood that we share. Back in January, our Kindred Spirits readers each chose two books that would take us through 2026, then we mapped out our choices on a calendar and set our meeting dates and locations for each month so that we could guard those calendar days and set ourselves up for attendance success.

It wasn’t until our actual book club meeting day (the last day of our trip to Vogel State Park last week) that I finished this month’s book, The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy, on the drive home (I like to go back and forth between Kindle and Audible). What I think I loved most about waiting until the last minute before the meeting to read the book is that so many of the details were still fresh in my mind for discussion. Generally, I read our selections far ahead of time, and by the time we meet, I’ve read a mix of other books and get the details mixed up. I’ll be more strategic with the timing of my book club selections in the future.

This book is an absolute treasure, by the way. Holly Kennedy is a Canadian author, and she had me in stitches with the kidnapping of a Canadian Goose named Tom Hanks. If you’ve never had the experience of sitting by a campfire reading a book that has you in a full-blown belly laugh while total strangers walk by chuckling from your contagious laughter, please find your way to a bookstore (or get a copy free on Kindle Unlimited) and meet Holly Kennedy in the pages of this novel as you sit by the fire this fall. I’d classify it as a comedic whodunit and go as far as classifying it as a modern Bildungsroman because the main character functions in so many ways as a child but grows in his understanding of the world. As a writer, I appreciate the way the author uses one character’s elaborate t-shirt collection to build character development throughout the novel. This book will change your perspective on those who face life with the deck stacked against them. Visit this link for more information about Holly Kennedy and read the Substack interview. Even in her author photo, you can tell she’s quite a character herself.

Reading by campfire

October’s selection (changed slightly from our calendar) is a choice of this trio: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth, Remain by Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan, or Songteller by Dolly Parton, just to give a fourth-quarter choice of an ironic author collaboration on a romantic ghost story, a timely biography, and a book flying off the shelves and so compelling it pulls you in and won’t turn loose, and then leaves you wanting to read it all over again. Here are our other selections we’ve read this year. We’re always interested to hear what others are reading and how it has broadened minds, opened worlds, and led to new adventures!

Our Book Club Calendar

Happy Reading!

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September 2026 Open Write Day 2 of 4: Back To Poems

Today, I’m hosting the second day of the September Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read my full prompt here and then, later in the day once all the poets have had a chance to write to the prompt, visit the site to read the poems others have written.

My writing communities have a huge impact on my life as a consumer and creator of poetry. Each month, writers of Ethicalela and other groups encourage me with prompts and ideas. I am blessed that other writing friends freely share ekphrastic prompts (Barb), prompts from Substacker Audrey Gidman (Denise), prompts from Georgia Heard (Margaret) and prompts from Writer’s Digest (Glenda) and so many others.  This month, I’m using Robert Lee Brewer’s Wednesday Poetry prompt idea shared by Glenda to get us started on what we want to get back to.  While many are going back to school, I’m getting back to knowing myself at the pace of retirement.  What are you getting back to? 

Make a list of all the possibilities of things we can get back to.  Back to the Future.  Back to Back.  Back to School.  Back to School Shopping. Back to the topic at hand.  Back to What We Were Talking About.  Back to Sleep. Then, create a poem along that line of thinking.  Glenda Funk and I offer two short forms below. 

Glenda’s Poem 

My Poem

Getting Back to Me:  A List Poem

I’m getting back to

pressing wildflowers

sipping coffee later

writing poetry

reading books

watching sunsets

feeding hummingbirds

wearing jeans and Birkenstocks

napping with dogs

learning mahjong

mailing postcards

building campfires

painting with watercolors

stretching yoga poses

peeing on my own schedule

lingering over lunch

taking walks

driving the back roads

sewing rag quilts

getting to know myself 

….all over again

Campfire reading at Vogel State Park in the North Georgia Mountains, September 2026. Book: The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy
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Soon the Red Wolf Inspiration

Each month, as part of The Stafford Challenge writing group led by Brian Rohr of Portland, Oregon, I look forward to the virtual writing workshops and visits with poets. Earlier this month, Melissa Helton, Director of Literary Arts at the Hindman Settlement School in rural Appalachia, offered a bonus writing workshop in which she shared several of her favorite poets, their poems, and prompts to inspire us to write our own poems. For the next few days, I’ll share the way she presented the information and the way she led attendees to write poetry using mentor poems.

When we arrived in the session, Brian introduced Melissa, who took us on an exploration of four poets by briefly sharing a little about each. Then, she shared a poem that had stuck with her. She read a single poem by each writer and then gave a prompt, inviting us to write our own poems.

One poet was Annie Woodford, who wrote the poem Soon the Red Wolf. You can read the poem here. The after-reading prompt was to write a poem about some kind of extinct or invasive species in our own areas. My mind immediately went to Cogongrass, a leading invasive species in the rural southeastern United States. It’s one of the reasons we are not supposed to bring firewood into any of the campsites we visit. Because Cogongrass is so hard to eradicate (like kudzu), even the seeds that might be left on a saw blade cutting trees used as firewood could be transported into areas through the firewood and take root in state parks. I suppose that really, these seeds could do the same thing on tires of cars, e-bikes, or even yard toys kids may take camping, but we respect the rules and their reasons.

A Seed on a Prayer

Cogongrass

is why we can’t

carry our own

firewood to our

favorite campsites

because of the seed matter

on sawblades

like a deadly

parasite

crossing membranes

penetrating all that

is holy and pure

and so we

buy bundles

strike a match

and pray,

orange-crackling

embers lifting

to Heaven

on a reverent

flaming Amen

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September Art on the Trails and Time in the Landscape

In retirement, I’ve been dedicating more time to submitting my writing. I recently opened my Submittable page and saw what every writer wants to see: an acceptance among all the declined work.

Dear Art on the Trails Poets-

Congratulations on your acceptance into the 10th Anniversary Art on the Trails Chapbook!

We are thrilled to have both returning and new poets join the ranks of hundreds of poets who have participated in the program.

Today is the gathering along the trail in Massachusetts where attendees will gather to move progressively through this landscape of artist and poet joining to celebrate the visual art pieces and the poems that were selected by the artists to represent each work.  When I saw the work of children’s woven moon phases in Selection 16: Phases, created with wire, wood, and yarn by Denise Johnson’s elementary school students who would be featured as part of the 2026 Art on the Trails: Time in Landscape, I thought of the young hands weaving this art, leaving their mark on the universe ~ a timestamp. And my poem was born.

Timestamp Tanka

children weave moonbeams

waxing, waning, wrapped in light

young hands shape vast skies

their marks on the universe

immense timestamps of presence

You can hear me read my poem Timestamp Tanka here (video). Or, hear the audio below.

I would like to encourage my writing friends to submit to next year’s call for poems. It’s revitalizing to be inspired by visual art that prompts writing.