Today’s watercolor took me back to the early 1990s when my bedspread, curtains, and wall art in my bedroom were all splattered with splendid sunflowers – big ones, with a blue sky background that made me feel like I woke up in a Van Gogh painting every single morning. I can’t wait to have more time to paint; each of these paintings I’m sharing in May were created over Spring Break the first week of April, and even though I’m in a watercolor class now, I haven’t been able to attend in person because of…..well, the month of May…..as an educator. Days and nights both are slammed with commitment, and retirement keeps calling my name a little more loudly each time. Because I really have some petals, leaves, and stems I need to work on.
It’s hard to believe that after today, students in our school system have only 12 days left until summer. The time crunch of finishing out this year has us all scrambling to wrap up the loose ends of one school year and pick up the new ones for next year – – I feel pulled in two different directions, but as I told my husband years ago when he couldn’t figure out why I was so moody at the beginning and end of a school year, “Circle August and May on your calendar, and remember that those are the months I’ll be slightly frustrated about most everything.”
I have a few more Centos I was working on in March that I had left unfinished and have now completed, and this one today is from Sophie Diener’s collection Someone Somewhere Maybe. I wrote this one for three dear friends who are moving on to new chapters in their lives next year, and I couldn’t be happier for them after the year they’ve had. For C, A, and S. One of the most wonderful places on earth has changed, and they are ready for better days.
Burning Bridges
I think I need to remind myself
I hope that you are happy
I will explain my anger:
a bridge that’s been burned.
Taken from: Birthdays; Hope You’re Happy; When I Lay Down the Pen; Seasons
I’m already dreaming of a summer of reading and all the books on my TBR list – – and I will begin with a collection of poetry. Sally Donnelly, a long-time writing buddy from Two Writing Teachers whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting on more than one occasion in person at the National Council of Teachers of English Convention, is hosting a Summer Reading Club. You can check out her invitation to participate and her directions to her Padlet here, introducing her selections Dictionary for a Better World by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, and 44 Poems on Being with Each Other, an anthology curated by Padraig O’Tuama. I have had the opportunity of deeply engaging in Dictionary for a Better World a few years ago, so on Wednesday of last week while I was in Atlanta on a personal day to see the musical Six, I treated myself to the guilty pleasure of leisurely browsing a bookstore, where I picked up a copy of 44 Poems on Being With Each Other.
Yesterday, Wildflower Watercolor Week started, and I’m taking a class online to learn more about watercolor techniques. After March bloggers at Slice of Life shared their love of Emily Lex watercolor books when Leigh Anne Eck asked what everyone would bring to a party where technology was not allowed, it brought back memories of strolling through Woodstock, Vermont and seeing one of those themed watercolor books after NCTE was held in Boston a couple of years ago. Slicers resurrected that memory with their love of watercolor books. I picked up an off-brand at Hobby Lobby and shared a couple of my paintings with Glenda Funk, who then found a watercolor class on Facebook and encouraged me to sign up. So I did, and I look forward to learning new techniques from a real person, not a step-by-step book. On weekends throughout March, (and today) as we travel here and there, I’ll be painting and sharing Haiku Watercolors – the semi-good, the bad, and the ugly.
Here’s one of my daughters’ favorites, along with a haiku that mentions one of my favorite poetry collections I’ve read lately: Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan.
After an unseasonably chilly weekend with some misty drizzle and some sunshine while we were out gallivanting in Indian Springs State Park in Flovilla, Georgia and having shrimp and gouda grits at Yahola Creek for the Kentucky Derby party, we are back to the weekday work routine of a mundane Monday. I can’t help considering the similarities of the Derby for a horse to the impending retirement of everyday people everywhere, looking forward to grazing in the green pasture without running the race in all the trained and prescribed ways of riders jockeying them into position, running the never-ending course to finish first in their own Golden Tempo.
I was thrilled to see history made Saturday with the first female trainer of a Kentucky Derby winner wearing the color of the day – the hope for the run for the roses of red – as she tearfully approached the ring and took her place in the annals of time, celebrating her moment as the hearts of all women everywhere cheered her from the stands and living rooms throughout this great country and all around the world. Ada Limon’s famous poem How to Triumph Like a Girl is not lost on a day like this, the poem itself inspired by the running of the horses when the poet lived in Kentucky.
Ears up, girls, ears up! – Ada Limon
And for today, here is another favorite female poet – Lucille Clifton – whose poetry I’ve used to create a cento like those I wrote in March, using a line from different poems to form an entirely new one.
Wild Country
live where you can
be the one that understands
it is home and you know it
but listen
it is wild country here
there will be no peace
listening for the bang of the end
Taken from poems in this order: eyes; defending my tongue; ways you are not like Oedipus; to my friend, Jerina; eve thinking; lucifer understanding at last; the beginning of the end of the world
We’re off on a Haiku Watercolor Weekend in The Next Chapter, our Wayfarer way of wandering the world and seeing all the beauty of different places from the above the rims of our coffee cups on a cool, misty morning as we gather our schnoodles, Boo Radley and Ollie, into our laps and give them tiny bites of powdered donuts on a Sunday morning in Indian Springs State Park in Flovilla, Georgia. And yes, we, too, are a little misty-eyed even without the weather, because we are missing our Schnauzery-Schnoodle Fitz, who was too miserable to go on living and had to be granted the perpetual nap last Wednesday afternoon as I held him for the last time, hugging him close as he drew his last breath in this world. He was a camping dog straight to his very core and took in the world through his nose the way we take it in through our eyes, only he made no effort to hide his animalistic wild passion to dig into it all while we sometimes take it for granted and try to keep ourselves contained. But he is here in his way, in spirit, for there is a little vial of clipped hair that sits in its place in the Wayfarer that he slept in only once before taking an exit the rest of us haven’t taken yet. And while he’s reached his final destination, he remains forever imprinted on our hearts for the rest of our journey because we are forever changed having been his people.
May is a month of Haiku Watercolor Weekends, and I’m sharing it all – the learning, the bad, the ugly, the once-in-a-million surprise of something turning out like there might be a cell of an artist in my blood somewhere. I’m even sharing the ones where the paper got too wet; but hey – it’s a leaf, and they get waterlogged in the rain, right?? I think what I’m learning most is how to look really closely at every detail, and to be more like Fitz was: to want to dig into the world and take it all in without taking anything for granted. I’m also learning that though artists often make things look easy, things aren’t always easy. Take leaves, for example…..
Throughout March, I had blogging friends in the Slice of Life Challenge who shared their love of the Emily Lex watercolor books that take you step by step through watercolor painting techniques. I found some off-brands in Hobby Lobby and picked up a book on Spring Break during a camping trip. It was so relaxing and stress-relieving for me! I am planning to make Haiku Watercolor Weekends happen in May as a tribute to Matsuo Basho, whose most well-known haiku poem is on my blog logo this month. I like setting up a table at a campsite and enjoying the sounds of nature as I paint and write. My friend Glenda Funk of Idaho signed up for a Watercolor Week class on Facebook, and I may do the same since it is ten dollars for the week and they offer the recordings of the live sessions since I’ll be working during those times.
Today, I’ll be on my first outing in the new motorhome, The Next Chapter, at Indian Springs State Park. We traded in the InTech for something I could drive, and I picked it up last Saturday. The retirement dreams are becoming actual plans – but first, I am using the last three months before retirement traveling locally to learn how everything works with setup and driving. I didn’t want to have to tow anything, so I won’t have to hook it up to the hitch, and all I have to do is mash a button for the self-leveling feature. It drives a lot like a large SUV, and because it has a great backup camera, I can back into campsites with fewer challenges. I may even find some time this weekend for painting – – but meanwhile, here is one of the very first attempts I made in April. It’s a Monstera plant, and the holes remind me of monster eyes.
Sarah Donovan has a way of weaving community together like a cherished tapestry so that each voice and thought has a place, each poet shines. And I am in awe – of her, of her poetry, of every voice in my writing community that sustains me and brings joy to all my broken places. I can’t yet write or think or feel since Wednesday afternoon, when I had to hold my beloved Fitz for his last breath and release him…..but even without that little nose nudging me awake and those sweet little eyes staring into mine with full love, I’m better for having been Fitz’s person for the time we had him.
My buddy Fitz watching for deer
Celebrating Through The Tears: A Tribute to Poets in Community
my fingers won’t write but one thing I know: poets write hope in the grief
my heart won’t yet beat but this I know: poets find pulse in lifelessness
my breath won’t calm down but what I know: poet friends reach in, hold hands, sit
my eyes can’t see straight but I know this: poet friends jump in the tear pool
my soul has a hole and this I know: poet friends share theirs to fill mine
Barb Edler of Iowa and Glenda Funk of Idaho were our hosts yesterday for VerseLove. They brought us a thought provoking prompt (and the amazing Kate Baer as an inspirational poem) to start our midweek morning, thinking of all the ways we can make manifest the unseen in our world and lives, often in relationships and actions others can’t see – or refuse to see. I saw a musical last night – Six – that had me thanking writers who can raise voice and tell stories even ages after the living.
Six – History or Herstory?
onto The Fox stage Six voices raised: herstory (why we need no kings)
Yesterday, April 28, our KidLit Progressive Poem for 2026 was complete. Tabatha Yeatts added the starting and final lines, and also drew our map for the journey through the poem this month. As April comes to a close, we celebrate National Poetry Month and all the places it has taken us and will continue to take us. Tomorrow I will resume VerseLove blog posts and will delay by one day, but for today, come celebrate The Land of Poetry and take time to explore all of the poets who contributed lines to this poem…..
because there is no
place I’d rather be than The
Land of Poetry
Map by Tabatha Yeatts
The Land of Poetry
On my first trip to the Land of Poetry, I saw anthologies of every color, tall as buildings. A world of words, wonder on wings, waiting just for me! Birding for words shimmering, flecked in golden gilding,
binoculars ready, I toured boulevards and side streets exploring vibrant verses, verses so honest and tender, feathery lyrics, bright flitting avian athletes soaring ‘cross pages in rhythmic splendor.
In the Land of Poetry, I am the conductor seeking oodles of poems that tug at my heart– a musical medley of sound and structure An open mic in Frost Forest! Wonder who’ll take part?
There’s a pause in the program; no one takes the stage. The trees quiver, the audience looks up. Raven lands, singing Earth’s message of the sage. “Poetry in motion will be forevermore, from forests to sands.”
“Scatter,” she croaked. “Beyond Wilde Pond, to each and every beach.” Meek Dove mustered courage and sang, “Instill humanity with compassion & peace. Let Thackeray’s middle name, from this thicket, hearts reach!” Her gentle coo-ooo-ooos reverberate, soft as fleece.
Words dart, dimple—Do I dare warble what’s in my soul? I’ve inhaled inspiration…yes, I’ll risk my refrain. I fly to the mic, chanting “Tadpole, mole and oriole! Come all living beings from water, land, air; come high and low terrains!
Come, living your poems, hearts open, ablaze, Sing out your noise, adding to our forest-filling chorus!” Together. Empowered. Our choir conveys, “Why poetry? Words transform and restore us!”
Our host, Jessica, lives in Chicago, Illinois where she teaches English. She is currently a teacher-consultant with the Chicago Area Writing Project.
Jessica offers these words of inspiration: “This winter, I was fortunate to see the Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. ” She was inspired by the lyrics of Grapefruit, in which a poem takes the form of instructions. Today, she inspires us to write poems on how to do something. You can read her full prompt here.
Lately, I’ve returned to the interlibrary loan system I used when I was in college to get books I want to read in my rural county in middle Georgia. I log in to my account, search the shelves across all the state libraries, and place holds on the ones I want in hard copy with my Pines System Library card. One simple click brings them across the miles to me – for free – where I pick them up and return them right across the street when I’m finished. It’s a frugal way to read anytime, but especially with retirement and a more limited budget as the next chapter. Also, our library offers free state park and zoo passes and theater tickets. If I want to listen, I can log in to Libby and get audiobooks too. This is the way to live, laugh, and read.
A librarian helps a smiling patron check out books at the library counter.
Common Threads 