Patchwork Prose and Verse
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and it’s the day of flowers, so I’m celebrating with flowers – three tiny white daisies in a windowsill vase, inspiring a small poem of three stanzas. A tricube poem is one that has three syllables on three lines in three stanzas. I have written one today to appreciate the small, simple things.
Valentine Tricube
small blush vase ~
windowsill
daisy joy
fresh flowers
greet the day
lovingly
simple blooms
standing still
keep things real
Georgia Heard’s Substack offers writing calendars that work for both children and adults. Here is her February Valentine Mini Writing Calendar, inspiring us to fall in love with the everyday. Day 6 asks us to fall in love with love with a small ritual that brings us comfort or joy such as morning coffee, walking the dog, or lighting a candle.
Do Tell
for me, it’s when
we come home
from anywhere
even if we’ve
only been gone
three minutes
to check the mail
here they come
all three boys
ears flapping
tails up
pawing our legs
Come, play!
they say
but it’s when
they turn
take off
and hit full
speed down
the hall
racing for
all they’re
worth to
wait for us
in our
chairs like
old friends
ready for
coffee and
conversation
on the couch
that really surges
my joy meter
tell us, what is
did you do with
your wild and
precious day?
they ask,
licking our faces
and we tell them
My friend Margaret Simon shared Georgia Heard’s Substack with me, and I love reading about her travels and writing experiences – and her book recommendations. You can see her posts here.
I love that Georgia offers writing calendars that work for both children and adults. Here is her February Valentine Mini Writing Calendar, inspiring us to fall in love with the everyday. I’ll be starting this today and walking with Georgia through the week. Join me with a journal and a pen!
Day 3 asks us to notice light and how it lands, how it moves, and then to write about one moment of light that stayed with us.
Weekend Waffles
the hexagon window
in my reading room
throws a morning sunbeam
onto the wall
opposite my bed
its tiny square panes
within look like
buttery waffles
syrupy and warm
drizzled in sunshine
My friend Margaret Simon who blogs at Reflections on the Teche shared Georgia Heard’s Substack with me, and I love reading about Georgia’s travels and writing experiences – and her book recommendations. A couple of months ago, she shared that she was reading The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life, and recommended it on her post. I picked it up and loved every page of it. I think what I enjoy most about her book recommendations is that they are journey-related and not necessarily bestsellers that everyone would naturally pick up and read. I like books that take me down back roads, and she does a splendid job of sharing sacred places, both inward and outward.
Georgia Heard offers writing calendars that work for both children and adults. Here is her February Valentine Mini Writing Calendar, inspiring us to fall in love with the everyday. I’ll be starting this today and walking with Georgia through the week. Join me with a journal and a pen!
Day 1 asks us to fall in love with love with something ordinary: the sky, a pencil, a crack in the sidewalk, and to write a few lines about what we noticed.
Sunday Brunch
chickadee chirped
from the wreath on the front door
I could see her
through the swirled glass
seeking shelter from the icy wind
diving in and out of the bucket of seed
I’d left on the porch
I scooped up two handfuls
scattered them on the sidewalk
she invited her friends
to Sunday brunch
I was browsing through our local used bookstore on a lunch break last week when, on my way out the door, a book caught my eye. Its title, Write the Story, glimmered in gold lettering down the spine, as if to plead: Hey, over here! See my sparkle? Take me home with you!
Already reaching for the doorknob, I changed course and went back to check it out. I expected a how-to on the writing process. Instead, I discovered the hidden treasure of a delightful writing challenge. Each page bore a titled topic with ten pre-determined (seemingly random) words to be used in the writing of a story.
The pages appeared to be blank except for one on which someone had penciled a story to satisfy one singular challenge and apparently moved on with life, abandoning the book and donating it to the bookstore, where it now rested in my hands. Treasure, indeed!
Poems to be written. Winter seeds of poetry, all scattered between the covers of one book. Destined for me, cast off like a stray no one else wanted, knowing all the while that a cultivator of words and writing would be most likely to pick it up, fall in love with it, take it home, and feed it.
I bought it and realized that other members of my small-group Stafford Challenge writers must have a copy. When we commit to writing a poem a day for a year, we all need a little prompting from time to time when the well runs dry or life gets too busy to think deeply like a poet. Once back inside the car, I turned on the heat and warmed up. I ordered three more copies online from the parking lot to send to Glenda Funk, Barb Edler, and Denise Krebs upon their arrival. Then I took a few snapshots to send them in the mean time.
Today’s title: In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter
Words: opera, redeem, razor, lungs, grace, futuristic, tread, vest, powder, milkshake
In the Middle of a Long, Cold Winter
like that one lingering note
concluding a futuristic opera
treading frozen spring water
winter cleanses our lungs
razor-sharp alveoli icicles fall
sun breaks out in a crescendo
of seasonal transition
melting the white powder
milkshake from the mountainside
grace of its forgiving kiss
beckoning crocus, groundhog-like peepers
stretching up through frozen ground
ready to crawl out of bed
emerge from quilted slumber
shed their corm-sewn bud vests and
sing a new song
There’ve been heated debates lately on our small rural Georgia county’s discussion page. People are bashing others who went to support the monks in their march through Georgia for peace. Some said there were maybe 6 or 8 monks and a dog on this trek. I saw the places advertised about where they were going to be and when, but I was busy and did not go. I cannot agree with anyone who would bash a monk or anyone who supports anyone else who adheres to a belief system that is their own or different from their own; that’s our fundamental freedom – to choose our religion and to make our choices.
Now if monks were tearing down towns and setting fire in the streets, rioting and smashing windows and shooting people or blowing up buildings, then that might be a different story. But I have never known a monk to misbehave or cause harm to others. For me? I choose the Bible. I believe it is the only way to Heaven. I will still break bread at a table with others who believe differently from me and celebrate that we are human beings here on this earth for a very short time to experience life. That’s enough. It’s not my calling to spit on my brothers who believe differently – – Jesus didn’t do that. He said to love them.
I’ll go a step further: I’ll love their dog, too. And if I had been there, I would have cheered them on for their fortitude. Whether I believe what they believe in or not, I believe in those who protest peacefully and find ways of making statements that do not harm others. Our country was founded on religious freedom, and we are on a slippery slope when we take aim at the religious beliefs of others. Christianity itself has its own denominations, and we respectfully agree to disagree on scriptural interpretation by attending different churches. In my day, the Methodists and the Baptists would get together for an evening game of softball and shake hands at the end of the game. We didn’t throw down over whether Baptism should be sprinkling or dunking. It just didn’t happen.
And it shouldn’t today. I believe in my maker, knowing the freedom is mine. I’m grateful to live in a country that still gives us all the freedom to do that, and I hope I never forget to consider what could happen if that freedom changes. I reflect on my father’s words today: be confident enough in your God that you are not threatened by anyone else’s.
all these people
parsing the scripture
bashing monk watchers
yet they
eat forbidden fruit
wear makeup
shave legs
what gives?!?
How About Now?
Kate’s done it again ~
written her best poems yet
…..dessert poetry!
Reading and writing circles in my life that started as groups but quickly became those who are now friends and sisters enrich my life in ways that bring depth and meaning to ordinary days. At the end of this week, one group will celebrate the finale of the second year of The Stafford Challenge, led by Brian Rohr in memory of William Stafford and will kick off year three with a launch party the next day. I’ll be there for both, but at first I wasn’t quite sure.
I didn’t participate in a small writing group with this larger group during its first year, deliberately waiting to feel the climate. Once you’ve participated in a few groups, you realize that there are some unhealthy ones out there and that it’s always best to stand back and take a long, hard look at who’s at the party and how they’re behaving before deciding whether to go all in and put your heart out there.
By the middle of the first year, I could sense that the larger group had plenty to offer, but I was still hesitant to take part in a small group with such an eclectic mix of personalities. I prefer positive people still growing as writers, and I’d sensed that there were a few who perceived themselves as professional poets with red pens, ready to offer venomous feedback on everything that didn’t align with their thinking. The few times I ambled into the Facebook group and posted a poem, it reminded me of a small town social media group with spiked collars and leather jackets and on…something, maybe steroids or stronger, and that simply wasn’t for me. I’d written a poem about my daughter’s birthday, and one lady accused me of being a racist because I’d used the expression gypsy vagabond. I took the poem down, satisfied that I’d finally confirmed that the idyllic pond was trolled by poet-devouring piranha.
I realized it wasn’t just me when one of my writing friends from my favorite larger writing circle shared that she, too, had experienced a troubling exchange in that group. Fast forward, and it turned out that four of us whose groups spanned to other circles were looking for a small group to continue in The Stafford Challenge, and so we formed our own that meets on the first Monday night of each month. We share what we’re writing, what we’re reading, what we’ve written, and what we’ve read. We talk grandchildren and husbands and children and pets, and we talk life. We inspire each other to keep writing, and we nudge each other to try new forms and techniques. We encourage and empower. There are no red pens.
That’s how I learned of Kate Baer. My friend Glenda Funk, a retired teacher from Idaho who travels the world with her husband Ken and is an avid reader who is also owned by some extremely spoiled and entitled Schnoodles, shared Kate’s book of found poems I Hope This Finds You Well, and I joined the fan club instantly. I didn’t think Baer could put out a better book of poetry, but Glenda mentioned last week that she’d just finished the latest Kate Baer, How About Now, and I finished it in one sitting yesterday. By the end of the day, I might have ordered one of those blue shirts on her website shop – – 1-800-How-About-Now. And the print of that favorite poem, How About Now, that you can read here.
And of course I surfed around, looking for more to dig deeper into Kate’s life and inspiration. The best reading I found was this interview https://cupofjo.com/2025/12/11/kate-baer-house-tour-pennsylvania-poet/ where we learn just how common her life is, and we realize that this is the way of the truest poets – the gifts of seeing the wonder in the simple things and being able to share it in words to tug at the hearts of readers with such enormity.
Consider my heart tugged, and consider me grateful for all the readers and writers in my life who offer such joy. You are what I think Kate Baer refers to as The Cure. Which, by the way, is my own personal favorite poem from her latest book.
P.S. I wanted to share one Substack author’s link about Kate’s Found Poetry in I Hope This Finds You Well.
Sometimes I like to open the book I’m currently reading to a random page and find a poem hidden there in the pages, peeking around the corners of other words, just waiting to be discovered. It reminds me of Augusten Burroughs’ Running With Scissors, where he and his friends did what they called a “Bible Dip” anytime they needed scriptural guidance. They’d open the Bible and drop their finger onto the page and read the verse to see what wise answers pertained to whatever the matter at hand.
Right now, I’m reading Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, and I can’t stop turning the pages. It is humorous and heartwarming, and all at once I can go from one breath with tears welling and one to full laughter, the kind where you’re alone in a room in your favorite chair and you know if anyone is watching, they will think you’ve finally gone over the edge. It would pair well with Sy Montgomery’s Soul of an Octopus, and already I’m wondering whether I need a box of tissues like I did at the end of that one after I’d bonded with Octavia and found myself overcome with sorrow upon learning her fate. I can feel the faucet of tears coming on now just thinking about it, so I’m shifting gears and doing a Poetry Dip to find some words and phrases on two of Van Pelt’s pages (20-21) and weave them into a poem.
Words are funny like that. They will find you where you are and walk alongside you, knocking on your mind as you sit in thought, demanding attention. My own One Little Word for 2026 continues to salt and pepper moments as I think of all the ways I need to heed its urging and all the ways I can bring its nuances into my own writing. I’ve tried to show the onward movement in today’s poem, navigating the currents of the stages of grief.
Tentacles
tragedies ~
rawness,
despair
clustered,
soaked through
grief
~ cascaded,
etched,
blurred
into a sea
of sunshine
over the crest
A shadorma poem is one with six lines, in this syllable sequence: 3/5/3/3/7/5. My One Little Word (OLW) of 2026 is Onward!
Onward!
what we bring
into this new year
depends on
what is worth
keeping ~ and having the strength
to let the rest go
Years ago, Ali Edwards challenged a growing following of folks to choose ONE LITTLE WORD to take with them through the year as a sort of guiding light or inspiration. 2026 will be my fifth year of choosing a word to walk through the year with me. In 2022, my One Little Word was listen. I learned so much that year holding that one word that for 2023, I kept the same word again – listen. In 2024, I chose pray. In 2025, I chose enough – and life has had its way of showing me some ironic twists on that word.
There is power in words – a strange magic. There is killing and healing and nurturing and reassurance and hope. There are dreams and hard realities, wishes and escapes and triumphs and failures. What I’ve learned by choosing my One Little Word is to choose it carefully – because it has its way of revealing its truths and meaning in ways I never expected. This is not just some flippant exercise where people string some letters together and leash them like a stray dog to drag into a new year, hoping the mystery of the universe will reveal itself. I had no way of knowing last year at this time, as I had finished cleaning out a house and barn in 2024 with the dream of getting our belongings down to just “enough,” that Dad would die smack-dab in the middle of 2025, leaving a lot of loose ends untied, including a house and seven storage rooms filled with a lifetime of more than enough. Since June, the weight of these things and their encumbrance has felt anchoring – and not in a healthy or freeing way. There is still much to be done in the two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance of getting rid of things…..and of letting things go (and there is a difference). It takes time, but the important thing is getting through it. Thank God for my brother and sister-in-law, who have saddled the horse and taken the reins. No pun intended.
How does anyone choose a word? Do I choose a word I need to do, like listen or pray? Do I choose a word I want to do, like read or travel? I believe in verbs. They’re actionable.
Enough was another story, though. This word functions as adjective (enough food), adverb (tall enough), pronoun (have you had enough?), noun (there is enough for everyone), and even as an interjection (Enough!). It all depends on the placement of the word in the sentence. But enough does not function as a verb. It’s the most passive word I’ve chosen as a One Little Word (OLW).
So how? How do I pick one word? Am I overthinking all of this? I need to pray, to listen, to do, to plan, to act, to forgive, to express, to read, to write, to diet, to focus, to breathe, to rest, to exercise, to clean, to laugh, to cry, to grieve and to smile. I want just enough, not too much, and not too little. I feel like a character in a cartoon on a journey standing at one of those signs with a thousand arrows in all directions, not sure of which way to go but feeling packed and ready, map of possibilities in full color in the side of my bag, but there is this ball and chain around my ankle. I simply need to get in motion. To amble, to saunter, to skip, to run, to perambulate, to jump, to not sit still, to not stand by, to take action on movement, to leap, to walk. To go in some direction. Onward.
Onward.
Here’s a word to get me through days, through meetings, through books, through situations, through decisions. Momentum to keep turning the pages, to forge ahead into new experiences and new chapters.
Onward.
It’s an adjective, an adverb, and can be an interjection. It keeps moving in a direction, not standing still or getting stagnant, pressing on but not missing the important moments, either – just not getting bogged down and feeling like my wheels are stuck in the mud.
Onward.
Not necessarily forward or backward, upward or downward but whichever direction seems best to choose. Like bedward at 9:00 p.m. Onward, toward or at a point ahead in time or space.
Onward.
For the last six months of 2025, I’ve felt anchored by the weight of belongings and random antiques and collectibles that were not my acquisitions. I’ve felt handcuffed in the anger and sadness of grief. It’s time to cut it loose…..to let it go…..to move….
Onward.
Common Threads 