Today’s prompt at http://www.ethicalela.com for the first day of the May Open Write is by Dr. Sarah Donovan, who encourages poems related to the stages of forgiveness and pain. I’ve chosen a double haiku followed by a shadorma for today’s verse, blending madness and sadness of grief that lingers. I’m reminded that sometimes forgiveness is a long time coming.
For Today
all lies, no mercy ~ how can I choose forgiveness? I’m still working through things that can never be replaced, lived out rightly the way she’d wanted
perhaps in time there will be a change of heart but for now for this hour, for this moment my soul can’t forget
I’m engaging in tiny writes this month, introduced by Georgia Heard on her monthly writing topics. Margaret Simon shared it on her blog earlier this month. Margaret also introduced me to the Shadorma form, which is a poem consisting of six lines with lines of the following numbers of syllables, in this order: 3,5,3,3,7,5. I’m using a tiny form for the tiny write topics and finding that it is a breath of fresh air after the marathon months of March with the Slice of Life Challenge at http://www.twowritingteachers.org and April with #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com.
Today’s topic on Georgia Heard’s calendar is Where You Belong.
I’m engaging in tiny writes this month, introduced by Georgia Heard on her monthly writing topics. Margaret Simon shared it on her blog earlier this month. Margaret also introduced me to the Shadorma form, which is a poem consisting of six lines with lines of the following numbers of syllables, in this order: 3,5,3,3,7,5. I’m using a tiny form for the tiny write topics and finding that it is a breath of fresh air after the marathon months of March with the Slice of Life Challenge at http://www.twowritingteachers.org and April with #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com.
Today’s topic on Georgia Heard’s calendar is A List of Last Times.
When my friend and fellow writer Margaret Simon of New Iberia, Louisiana invited me to the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in April to present a poetry writing workshop with her, I eagerly accepted the invitation and began planning the trip. Since it was during my spring break, it made taking the time away much less challenging. Even though I wasn’t able to stay for the entire festival, I enjoyed some time with Margaret – especially our time together in our VRBO as we wrote together and shared the experience as tea drinkers. (You’ll see how Emily Dickinson joined us in a photo at the bottom of this post).
During the month of April, we were both writing daily for #VerseLove2025, so we used the day’s prompt by Joanne Emery, also a writer with Slice of Life, to create poems inspired by looking closely at things around us – particularly things in nature. You can read Joanne’s poem below, used here with her permission.
No Longer
Every year, for twenty years we came here, to this house – two-story brick sitting stately on a hill surrounded by elms and maples, slate blue doors and shutters. We came to love this house because we loved the two people inside and loved them more as they aged – Silver-haired and stooping but always moving, always answering the door with open arms, and open hearts in every season: Magnolias bloomed fragrant in summer. In fall, elms showered yellow leaves onto the rooftop. A dusting of snow frosted the windows in winter. The pear trees’ white blossoms were the first sign of spring. The seasons rolled one onto another so imperceptibly we didn’t even notice. Gradually, the stairs became harder to climb. the television was harder to hear, vials of medicine lined the kitchen counter, important phone numbers were listed on the frig. Now, when we came, the house sat a little lower. We watched a little more closely. stayed a little longer. listened a little better, opened our arms and hearts just a little wider to keep the memories and the two inside close. But the seasons rolled on and the two are now gone and the house we loved Still sits on the hill but we can no longer return..
-Joanne Emery
Margaret’s poem:
(Margaret took a striking line from Joy Harjo’s poem to write a Golden Shovel poem about her friend’s butterfly garden).
Mary’s Invitation
In her garden, there’s salvia, swamp milkweed, that purple one I forgot the name of: you watch a swallowtail circle tall parsley flowers, back around to orange pincushion pistils on a coneflower for a taste of home.
-Margaret Simon
My poem:
Hello from Heaven
two days ago passing through Greenville, Alabama I noticed a mural~ Alabama’s Camellia City fuchsia petals and yellow anthers adorning the corners and thought of my mother, who loved them yesterday in Hattiesburg, Mississippi I drove past a camellia bush of these exact colors and thought again of my mother, who loved them
this gentle wave from Heaven to remind me of her sent me on a quest to discover more about the Japan rose which symbolizes advancing women’s rights and is used to make tea and food seasoning and to protect the blades of sharp cutting instruments ~
interesting, but where is the message from Heaven?
my brother will be at The Masters, where the 10th Hole is The Camellia Hole so I will tell him to look for a sign from our mother there and perhaps, just perhaps he’ll see a Freedom Bell or Cornish Show, Inspiration, Royalty, or a Spring Festival
maybe my own message is here, now, ~ in To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose’s garden when she insults his family but is later given a bud from the dying woman who struggled to overcome her morphine addiction and perhaps, just perhaps this camellia wave is every assurance that forgiveness of others is the work my heart needs to do
and perhaps, just perhaps I’ll plant a camellia this spring to welcome more hellos from Heaven from my mother, who loved them
I glance up at the coffee table in the VRBO where I’m staying and notice a decorative box I hadn’t noticed before now gold-outlined camellias as if my mother has been sitting with me as I write this poem and perhaps, just perhaps she has
– Kim Johnson
We listened to The Sound of Music, which Margaret and her mother often listened to together.
The tea I brought as a gift for Margaret (I have a canister I enjoy as well) is Poet Tea, inspired by the herbs and flowers of the New England farms where Dickinson lived and wrote her poetry. The steam of this tea seems to conjure her presence.
May brings some notable endings. It’s the first day that it hasn’t been National Poetry Month for the past 30 days, and the first day that there is no organized month-long community writing group occurring. The Stafford Challenge continues, but Slice of Life and VerseLove have concluded for the year. May also brings the end of the school year for students and teachers, and there is a strange sense of winding down and gearing up all at once.
I’m ready for that pause. I have friends retiring this year, and there is a strange mixture of both fear and envy for them. I want to be at the point where I can load the camper and take off for two months and see parts of the country I’ve never seen, just my husband, our three dogs and me. My limited time in the summer, for this year, I hope will satisfy my traveling itch for the coming year.
Today’s paint chip poem is one that I wrote when The Poetry Fox, Chris Vitiello, visited my town. We sat together at the oval table by the window in the far back corner on the night of his visit and wrote several together, then shared. I saw the avocado green paint chip and went straight back to our 1970s kitchen on St. Simons Island, Georgia at 208 Martin Street, where the washer and dryer sat at the carport end of the kitchen.
Glenda Funk of Idaho is our host today for the 21st day of VerseLove2025 at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read her full prompt here, asking us to write poems about five things we did last week in response to a recent federal memo. I chose to think of the sacrifices I made.
Sacrifices I Made Last Week
I didn’t have chocolate (I gave it up for Lent).
I didn’t have coffee (same as above).
I didn’t buy the shoes (I might this week).
I didn’t get mean (I might do that this week, too).
I gave the heart of my days to my work when I could have
Dr. Sarah J. Donovan is the founder of Ethical ELA, a community for teacher-writers, and a 2024 Fellow for the Genocide Education Project. A former middle school English teacher and author, she advocates for humanizing literacy practices, genocide education, and poetry as witness. Her work bridges pedagogy, justice, and storytelling.
Sarah inspires us to write poems in recognition of the past and in celebration of the Armenian people, their voices, and their enduring culture. You can read her full prompt here. I’m sharing a celebration pantoum.
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the 10th day of #VerseLove2025 is Joanne Emery, who inspires us to look closely at something in nature and write a poem about it. You can read her full prompt here.
I was on my way to Mississippi on Tuesday when I stopped for a memory card and noticed a huge mural proclaiming Greenville as Alabama’s Camellia City. I stopped and looked. I hadn’t thought of camellias in a long time, but my mother had loved them so much. It felt like a hello from Heaven.
Common Threads 