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Open Write Day 2 of May 2026: Trees

Erica of Arkansas is our host today for the second day of the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. She’s shared an inspirational prompt about trees and invites us to write about them. You can read her full prompt here. Come join us and read the poems of others or write your own!

I’ve been dabbling in watercolor lately, and one thing I’ve realized is that leaves are not easy to paint. I’ve also tried drawing my own pictures to paint, but concluded I’m a long way away from that technique. So pages in the watercolor books that guide and tell. how to paint the subject are my best option for building confidence and learning techniques.

And while ferns are not trees, it’s a Watercolor Weekend! Here is a fern I painted (not dark enough, but at least it turned out somewhere in the green color family). I recently brought a fern in a turtle planter home from St. Simons Island, where we are cleaning Dad’s house and yard to prepare it to go on the market, and ferns were one of my mother’s favorite plants.

To My New Turtle Fern

Fern: from 322 Magnolia Avenue in a concrete turtle planter

Everything about you

Reminds me of Mom – and Fitz, who

Never met a turtle he didn’t like

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May 16 Open Write Place Based Poetry on a Watercolor Weekend

It’s a Watercolor Weekend and an Open Write weekend, too – and I wish I could have painted the sky last night, but instead I am sharing a painting I started earlier this week and have not yet finished – it’s a Lily of the Valley, and I chose it for the varied shades of blue I feel when I’m around all this water. I’m on the road, so I didn’t bring my paints with me in preference for spending time with my people this weekend. This one didn’t blend well, but I do like the colors.

Our host today for the May Open Write is Jessica, who lives in Arkansas. Today, she inspires us to write about places in our state – anywhere, but particularly considering any hidden or obscure places. I’m in a uniquely-named place this morning – not in my own state, but in North Carolina visiting my brother and sister-in-law, who just bought their dream home right on Lake Hickory. I asked him, “So your house is in Hickory?” He said “No, it’s close…..it’s a Taylorsville mailing address.” And then he elaborated. “It’s actually Bethlehem. Our place on the map is in Bethlehem, North Carolina.” Our late parents would be so proud – Dad, a preacher, and Mom’s favorite Christmas carol was O Little Town of Bethlehem.

It took my breath away when I rolled in just before sunset last night. The sky changed from a watercolor palette to vibrance the opacity of oil with its blues and oranges and pinks a purples. We sat with wineglasses in hand watching it. This morning, a heron and an osprey, already, waving hello with a thousand other birds looking for breakfast. And I saw the Osprey flying high change course, dip down, skim the surface, and catch a fish. It’s spectacular to watch and resembled the eagles I saw in Alaska swooping down for fish so much that it has me wondering…..have I seen an eagle this morning??

So I’m writing about morning lake activity here in Bethlehem, North Carolina

Bethlehem

I think I know

why His eye is on the sparrow

with all the other birds

far more majestic in flight

this tiny song sparrow

may not have the wingspan

of the eagle or the osprey

but it sings praises more

powerfully than all the rest

here in Bethlehem

where songbirds

know the best reason

to sing

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Watercolor Welcome: Lemon

Confession time. I was trying my best to wait to read the book I chose to read for Sally Donnelly’s Summer Reading Club, 44 Poems on Being With Each Other by Padraig O’Tuama, but I have not been successful at all. A new book of poetry, for me, is a lot like that bag of M&Ms I try to hide from myself but that won’t quit calling my name until I give in and devour the whole thing. Forbidden M&Ms are like words of poetry – – I can’t quit until the last word in the bag is gone.

And so I have read, savored, pondered, written, and I haven’t gained all the pounds of the chocolate, but I’ve consumed all the delicious indulgence of the page. There’s no sense in feeling the guilt of reading the whole thing early ~ I read it and my clothes still fit, so I’ll celebrate the power of poetry to bring joy and inspire new writing.

I’ve been watercolor painting on weekends, and I decided to take Wendy Cope’s classic poem The Orange on page 224 in the book and allow it to inspire a poem and painting of a lemon, using Cope’s same iambic beat and stanza form. Already, I’m wondering what each poem in this book can inspire in art forms: photography, collage, jewelry design, mosaic, and a million other creative possibilities. I am re-reading already. A huge thanks to Sally Donnelly for inviting us to be part of a kindred gathering of readers.

The Lemon

while camping, I painted a lemon

its colors all citrus-y yellow

curious campers came calling

waving and smiling warm hellos

and that lemon, it brought conversations

of campfires and families and fun

once strangers, now neighbors chit-chatting

on sunshine-y site 301

the “ap-peel” was really surprising

my painting was not all that zesty

but colorful palettes paint friendships

I love my new lemon-y besties

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Watercolor Haiku: Orchids

Somehow or other, orchids are on a whole elevated level in the world of flowers. I think that even my father, who called hydrangeas “hydrangulas” in his final days, knew this. He distinguished himself and his friends, socially, by the esteemed class of this flower. As he talked about his dating days and how he earned money for the movies and dances selling crawfish he and his cousin Porky had caught in the Okefenokee Swamp, he made it clear that they were not “orchid guys,” as if the high school boys in Waycross, Georgia had circles of their own like Greasers and Socs in The Outsiders. In July of 2025, the month following his death in June, I shared the stories he had told us as my brother and I sat at his bedside – – many of them recorded so that others, too, could hear him tell all about the good old days. All those stories and recordings that I shared are on the right hand side of my blog page in the July 2025 tab.

Remembering that Dad was not “an orchid guy” on the heels of a weekend on St. Simons as my brother and I are still cleaning out the house, I’m here to tell you that he was right about that. Orchids take a lot of care, and Dad spent a lifetime collecting things that gathered dust and went unrepaired. You can flippantly toss a carnation around and it’ll last for days in a kitchen windowsill, but one cross look at an orchid and it will lose its petals and wither. Dad was a carnation guy – – not an orchid guy. And nearly one year later, I understand more about why he was not an orchid guy than I did when he first told the story.

Orchid

I cannot grow you

and perhaps I can’t paint you

but oh, I shall try!

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Watercolor Haiku: Sea Holly

I leave my island home today where I grew up, headed back to my home in middle Georgia. I chose the sea holly watercolor I painted back in April to share today. I was blessed to grow up on an island that so many love to visit for vacation and bask in the sunshine and relaxed pace of its beaches and massive oaks. These are all part of my roots, and I’ll never forget the days I spent here. But my roots have extended, and it’s time to release this place, keeping the strength and love I came to know here. And so the Sea Holly captures the essence of this day.

Goodbye, St. Simons Island, Georgia ~ the house is cleaned, ready like a hermit crab’s shell to house another family that will fit inside this place that will protect it from storms and dangers. I pray blessings over its future, that just the right buyer will come along and take up residence here.

Leaving the Island

Sea Holly blossoms ~

drought-tolerant, sun-loving

like most strong women

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Watercolor Haiku: Thistle

Today and tomorrow, I’ll be working in my late parents’ house – replacing toilet seats and ceiling fans, scrubbing hard water stains out of toilet bowls, and hauling the last things off to the dump. I bristle at some of the memories in that house, when what I need to do is thistle at them. So I’m changing my mindset from bristling to thistling…..and I may even whistle while I thistle.

It’s all part of the grief process I’ve been in for the past year with the way Dad chose to live his remaining years, still holding tight to everything he ever owned, despite our repeated requests to help him divest himself of all that was in those seven storage rooms and crammed into his house. He never considered the mess he was leaving for his children – a newlywed son who has had more to do than to want to clean up a lifetime of someone else’s memories, and me – a daughter who lives five hours north and works full time. Ah, but I digress and bristle…..let me thistle instead.

The Symbolism of Thistle

bravery and strength~

I need to thistle myself

for the coming hours

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Watercolor Haiku: Hummingbird

Somewhere in a box tucked in a recessed corner of the things I saved that I have not yet dealt with, one of Mom’s hummingbird ornaments rests in a padded wad of tissue paper, its tag still attached to the hanging string. She always loved birds – especially hawks and hummingbirds – which are as different as she and Dad were, this odd combination of meek and majestic. And just as oddly, she was the majestic one. She was the hummingbird.

Today, we head south to get the remaining things out of the house so that it can go on the market. And while I’m there, I’ll be watching for hummingbirds and hawks. They tend to appear now and then at the least expected times.

Hummingbird

you : Mom’s favorite

she watched you hover, dart, sip

here, then gone – just like her…