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Slice of Life – Poetry Half Marathon

19/May/202520/May/2025 Denise Krebs10 Comments

On Friday afternoon, I received a reminder from Google Calendar telling me the Poetry Marathon was going to start on Saturday at 6:00 a.m. Oh, boy! I had forgotten all about it, but I was game. I put on my brave poetry writing face, and started writing a poem an hour for 24 house. By 8:00 p.m., I was getting slap happy. Here are the poems I wrote on Saturday, along with the prompts for The Poetry Marathon.

May 17, 2025 Hour 1

Text Prompt: Imagine changing one thing about your past. Write a poem about how your life would be if that one thing had changed.

One Change

What if I would have learned
to mean it when I say, “I’m sorry”?
I would not apologize to you
for you stumbling over the rug, or
for me not having enough oranges
for us each to have one,
for flippantly using those words,
“I’m sorry” to mask.

I would have saved “I’m sorry” for
the big things—like not giving
you space for being your whole self
and for moving you across the country
when you were in tenth grade.

May 17, 2025 Hour 2

Text prompt: Write a poem containing a hippopotamus.

With Apologies to T.S. Eliot

The hippopotamus,
weighty on land,
hulking, yet gentle,
humble, nonviolent.

The Church can learn
from this beast who
will play the harp
in heaven.

May 17, 2025 Hour 3

Text Prompt: The title of the poem is Mythmaking. The contents are up to you.

Mythmaking

We are collectively
choosing what will
count as truth,
and what will go down
into lore as myth.

Believing myths
over science is
easier, I guess.
Easier to blindly believe
a simple lie than
to embrace messy
and complex truth.

Reexamine.
Remember.
Resist.

May 17, 2025 Hour 4

Text Prompt: The title of your poem is “The Art Thief”, everything else is up to you

The Art Thief

Is
it an
attitude,
a fear, a blithe
opiate for the
masses that motivates
defunding, keep-quieting
of the artists and poets and
troubadours of this age? We won’t still.
We will resist. You will not steal the arts.

May 17, 2025 Hour 5

Text Prompt: Write a poem about opening a window and seeing another universe through it.

I read six books during
the Trans Rights Readathon,
in an attempt to fling open
the window of respect
and wanting-to-understand.
I’m old, and it’s hard.
Thank you for being patient.

May 17, 2025 Hour 6

Not exactly a text prompt: Please choose one of the following two songs to listen to completely, one time through before writing a poem.

Will you kiss me
Already? With your dirty
Shoes and your full
Hands?
I know who you are.
Not leaving here, but
Going to tomorrow.

Make me an offer of
A menacing machine that
Can bring drumbeats to my
Heart.
I know you pretend I will
Never close my
Eyes.

May 17, 2025 Hour 7

Text Prompt: Write a poem that begins and ends with an image of fire, or begins and ends with the word fire.

Fire may consume us,
if we are not wise
enough to put a stop to
the insidious crawl of lies.

Devouring conspiracy theories,
Destroying institutions,
Ending ethics. Is there hope
these fires of ignorance may
open seeds of renewal?

Seeds long dormant, seeds
needing the heat of fear
of losing what we’ve had
for 250 years.

Burn on
Democracy fire

Burn on
Liberty fire

Burn on
Rebuilding fire

May 17, 2025 Hour 8

Text Prompt: Write a poem that contains at least five of the following ten words listed below:
Mug
Sliver
Branches
Eve
Dumplings
Trousers
Clatter
Bookshelf
Loud
Vinyl

Adam and Eve

When the world was perfection,
and you’d get nary a sliver from
any of the branches in the garden,
did Eve ever clown
around to make Adam laugh?
Did Adam ever mug for her attention?

What did perfection even look like?

We won’t know, for soon enough,
the loud clatter of distraction
caused Adam and Eve
to put on their leaf-trousers
and hide themselves.

May 17, 2025 Hour 9

Image Prompt: Photo credit Nandiya Nyx.

Full to bursting
This pod of hope
Waiting, just waiting

May 17, 2025 Hour 10

Text Prompt: Write an Abecedarian. In an Abecedarian the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet.

A Poem for Milo

Birthday coming
Chasing rainbows
Dancing to Beyonce
Eating avocados
Flying to Grammy and
Grandpots’ house
High-fiving others
Informing about trucks
Just three years old
Kidding with jokes
Living life to the fullest
Making crazy inedible dishes
Napping like a boss
Outgrowing clothes regularly
Persisting in scoring fruit snacks
Quieting himself at bedtime
Relaxing in his morning PJs
Steering the skid steer
Thanking others with gusto
Uniting others in love
Vocalizing what he needs
Watching construction sites
X-factoring our lives
Yearning for more fruit snacks
Zigzagging the toy room

May 17, 2025 Hour 11

Text Prompt: Write a poem from the perspective of someone who is at a different stage in their life then you currently are.

A Conversation Overheard in October 2026

Not voting. Bruh.
This country is straight
outta Ohio, no cap.
The pols are all sus.

Take a vibe check, Sis.
That’s washed.
Finna vote.
We need a serious glow up.
Fax.
Democracy for the W.
Bet.

May 17, 2025 Hour 12

Image Prompt: Photo credit Bruce Warrington on Unsplash.

So many things I don’t understand,
like where aliens land their rigs
and how cows sleep standing up.

May 17, 2025 Hour 13

Text Prompt: Write a poem that contains the word dude

Hey, Dude, don’t be so sad.
I bought you an Irish setter.
Remember to let her out of the house
Then your carpet won’t get any wetter,
wetter, wetter, wetter, wetter

May 17, 2025 Hour 14

Text Prompt: Write a poem that contains the phrase “Not the end of the world”

A Golden Shovel Toss Up

I will write and not
give up. The
Poetry Marathon will end
eventually. Plenty of
us will finish the
quest, for this is our world
if…………………………if
we……………………….I
don’t…………………..do
give……………………give
up……………………..up

It was after that poem. And before I could manage to write the next one, which was a poem “where the setting is a classroom.” (That should have been a possibility after 55 years in classrooms.) It was about then that I decided I was done. I was spent. I gave up at the 15th hour. Though I had completed the whole Poetry Marathon three times before, this time I was just happy to make it through the Half Marathon and go to bed early!

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Blossoming

02/May/202502/May/2025 Denise Krebs5 Comments

The bloom where you are planted
plaque on my Grandma’s wall led me
here. Here, to this stage in life,
privileged to be blooming old.

We sang this song on Sunday, the verses were in Spanish, but we sang the chorus in English. (I’ve been attending a Spanish language service for several months.)

All my life You have been faithful
And all my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God

(On a side note: As we sang, I realized the beauty of singing and worshiping in my native language; I’m rarely touched by the Spanish lyrics because I’m working so hard to figure out what they are saying.)

I will sing of the goodness of God.

When I ask myself, What about the devastation, the sadness, the unfairness in life? I just have to answer, I don’t know, but with every breath that I am able (and I’m not always able, I admit) I will sing of the goodness of God. I would rather do that than the alternative. Like Peter, I say, “Where else would I go?” (John 6:68)

As I spend time in nature, especially during the springtime, I am reminded of the goodness of life and the goodness of God. Even in the heartbreak and havoc of this world.

On here Spiritual Journey Thursday post, Carol shared this quote from Kohayashi Issa, “A world of grief and pain. Flowers bloom, even then.” Yes, indeed.

Peace to you all in this season, especially to Carol V., who lost her dear husband last month, and to Patricia F., whose father died this week. Carol Varsalona is hosting this month at her Beyond Literacy Link blog.

Poetry Friday – Springtime in the Desert

23/Apr/202524/Apr/2025 Denise Krebs12 Comments

It’s Poetry Friday in National Poetry Month. It’s been a busy month for me, entertaining good friends and family, chasing my sweet almost three-year-old grandson, celebrating my husband’s 70th, protests and good trouble work. I have missed being here. Today’s Poetry Friday host is Heidi at my juicy little universe. She’s got some Earth Day love, protesting, and poetry, along with the next line in our progressive poem. Thank you, Heidi.

Springtime in the desert is so magical this week, I’ve written about it the last two days in a row for my Verselove poems.

“Things to Do: Write a Poem” with Barb Edler

Things to Do Today

Give a new name to springtime in the Mojave, for there is no word for this special desert season. [It’s not like springtime in the Midwest, which springs to a summer of growth and an autumn of harvest. Springtime in the desert is its own sweet thing, shouting out to the world before it springs into the fire of searing summer.]

Here’s why our spring needs a new name:

- The juniper and creosote scents drift on the breeze
- The red-tailed hawk rises, watches for a meal
- The tiny green star inside the blossom of the strawberry hedgehog cactus shouts, Look at me
- The purple of the Mojave aster salutes this day
- The bees make merry
- The sparrows—Brewer’s, white-crowned, black-throated—hold a concert
- The phainopepla enjoys the sparrow orchestra, while munching mistletoe berries
- The hummingbirds feast on flowers
- Grandfather Nolina, like Father Time, passes the dried torch of last year to the next generation, where bees dance around the new fresh blossom
- The purple desert chia flowers wait to dry out and nourish others
- So many shades of green
- The quail’s wings shake and shiver
- The apricot mallow flower holds a dozen shades of coral
- My feet crunch sand to ground me in this place
- And more and more and more

2. Write a poem

3. That will do

Seasons in Syllables with Larin Wade

Springtime By Any Other Name

What
To call
this magic–
where color, scent,
and gentle blossoms
hold sway in the breeze of
perfection, and greens abound
‘til they dry into brown season?
What can one call this sweet enchantment,
which changes daily as fresh buds open
and others take leave until next year’s bloom?
The ladderback woodpecker sips sweet
nectar with the hummingbird, both
share the wealth of this spring dawn.
Shall I call it “Birds-sing-
buds-burst-forth” season?
Or shall I just
savor this
one fine
day?

Week 3 – Verselove 2025

22/Apr/202522/Apr/2025 Denise KrebsLeave a comment

April 15, 2025 – Color in Nature with Brittany Saulnier

I have seen the quiet dust
on the blue sage beavertail pads–
day after week after month,
month after brown month.
Until today, and the fuchsia
fireworks burst out.

April 16, 2025 – Etheree Revisited by Katrina Morris

We’re
diggers.
Two shovels,
Milo, and me:
Excavators.
Transfer sand here to there,
onto the porch in neat piles.
Sweep off the sand and pile again.
One large pile became a volcano.
So much sand. Is there time to move it all?

April 17, 2025 – Search Poem with Angie Braaten

A Search Poem

when poetry……………started
when poetry……………was first created
when poetry……………ruled the streets
when poetry……………speaks

when torture………………..d poets come out
when torture………………..d poets release
when was torture………….banned
what……………………………qualifies as torture
when is torture……………..legal

what is due process………………of law
what is due process………………in simple terms
what is due process………………for illegal (sic) immigrants
what is due process………………rights
what is due process………………simple definition
what is due process………………mean

In this world, we think we need
order and power and money
for a successful you and
me. And everyone wants
to have the same. We fight the
write, ignoring the
poetry, and now
that’s our downfall,
(not that we create) but that we trust
political leaders too much.
I hope we have learned that
must never again be our hope. We
listen to human torture,
to the concentration camps in
the deforested land, where
birds fail to thrive and sing
and presidents call dehumanization
in prison strength and
order their soldiers
to continue the brutality, prisoners who did not
hear the judge pronounce them guilty. Just
the kidnapping, the human trafficking, and the
birds who weep because there is no due process.
The United States used to be leaders, but a
war on justice has turned us into a global enemy.
Planes of mercy, smooth out the gouges that
must be leveled before we can thrive again. Citizens,
Be resistors of injustice and do not ever be
silent again.

Striking line by Marwan Makhoul – “In order for me to write poetry that’s not political, I must listen to the birds, and in order to hear the birds, the war planes must be silent.”

April 18, 2025 – Random Words with Tammi Belko

When the day is almost finished,
and you are relieved to not be going
to dinner, you rest in the change.
Sadness and disappointment establish
a premium of anger, as you watch
the rabbits scream and jump at each other
in conflict over the carrot scraps.
You are having a birthday celebration,
not a memorial service. The old agitation,
like a tumor, squeezes out your resolve.
Then your day finally finishes with piano
music and a warm bath. A minority of
your days are like this one.
Praise be to heaven.

April 19, 2025 – Bon Appetit! Food Poems with Jordan Stamper

It’s your birthday–
and Mexican food, it is,
no one would be surprised.
It’s your usual request,
made by my sister.

Bon appetit: Today we enjoy
chicken en mole, chile verde,
beans, rice and the biggest
bowls of chips and salsa
you’ve ever seen.

She made enough to feed
a hundred, even though we
were 24. All of us were there
to honor the new 70-year-old
and eat big and delicious
to celebrate this special day
of the love of my life.

April 20, 2025 – Lingering Lines with Susan Ahlbrand

The Circle of Life

Through despair and hope
When I don’t understand:
Peace. Just recall the scope
of life’s worthy wonderland.

Through faith and love
Till we find our place
In this circle, like a glove
Loose-fitting, full of grace

With italicized lines from “The Circle of Life” Lion King musical.

April 21, 2025 – What Did You Do Last Week with Glenda Funk

The milk of human kindness ain’t got thick cream on it for all of us. Ask ~~Hoover~~ Musk & Trump.

~John Samuelson

What I Didn’t Do Today
·      Deface National Park Service property by graffitiing over “Hoover” on this, one of Samuelson’s Rocks.
·      Break any bones or twist any ankles hiking at JTNP
·      Bake homemade hamburger buns
·      Get bit by the rattlesnake
·      Kill the pope
·      Give up

Slice of Life and Week 2 – Verselove 2025

08/Apr/202515/Apr/2025 Denise Krebs1 Comment

That’s right, it’s the Slice of Life challenge today, and I almost forgot. I’ll have to get into the every Tuesday routine again.

This month, it is National Poetry Month, and I am writing a poem a day, and posting them on my blog. Eventually this post will have a week’s worth; today, we begin Week 2.

It’s exciting to see a lot of Slice of Lifers at #Verselove this month: Bullets and Blanks, Lainie, Rita, Fran H., Anita, Margaret, Ona, Joanne, Kim D., Kim J., Glenda, and Barb. I know there are others who come to see the prompts and write in their notebooks at home. Have I missed anyone else?

Join us at EthicalELA.com/category/verselove for tomorrow’s prompt and the next day’s and the next, etc., through April 30. You are always welcome to lurk or write and comment with us.

April 8, 2025 – Good Son with Dr. Darius Phelps

On Faith and Popovers

In her old age, Grandma’s
“church” moved onto
the television—Jim and Tammy
Faye Bakker, Pat Robertson,
Oral Roberts and more.
Words of fear and
“send us your money” formed my
early faith journey–
for endless Sunday mornings
when we visited Grandma’s place.

At least there was time for her
to make popovers while she listened in
to her shows. We devoured the golden-orbed
puff pastry muffins, steaming hot,
filled with butter and jam, made
with Love.

My mother, years earlier, had rejected
the fear of fundamentalism that
infused her own childhood
and adolescence. She rejected
the faithful (for my dad), disrupting
the religion of her home and lineage.

Now, I’m thankful.
My mom rejected my grandma’s fear,
and she let me choose faith
with minimal nudges.
A God who isn’t afraid chose me;
a God who is patient and
uses evolution to create;
a God who made us thinkers;
a God who ushers in diversity,
equity and inclusion;
a Jesus God who values
humility,
empathy,
and Love.
Always Love.

I choose Love. And I choose
Grandma’s popovers–
baked with her recipe,
her ceramic ramekins,
and Love.
Always Love.

April 9, 2025 – Depending on When You Met Me with Britt Decker

Depending On When You Met Me, I Might Have Been:

a six-year old graffiti artist
a one-time fist fighter
a cello player
a dress-wearing tomboy
a loogie-hocking bully
a drill team member (again in a dress)
a 4.0 high schooler
a mis-speller of cheif
a long-and-winding-road traveler to a B.A.
a choir member
an angry, fearful know-it-all
a teacher of grades pre-K, K, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8
a softball and Quiz Bowl coach
a reading specialist
a believer
an unbeliever
a map-reading backpacker
a bride in ballet slippers
a suburban mom with a perm and asymmetrical cut
a Legos robotics coach
an activist and campaign worker
a follower not kept back by oceans too deep
a karak tea and masala chai connoisseur
a chief learner in life’s adventure
a seeker of truth and beauty, in other words, a poet

April 10, 2025 – Look Closely with Joanne Emerson

At Home With You

You shared this morning’s headline with me: there’s
Evidence that pets can “boost wellbeing”, that
Pets can, surprisingly, make one
As satisfied with life as being married. You
Tell me I could have had an easier life, and circle
Back playfully to all the pain I could have avoided, back
To the several dogs that could have replaced you, to
Instead, remind me, this fine day, of your love, for
Which I am grateful and so at home.

Joy Harjo’s striking line from “Redbird Love” – “There’s that one you circle back to — for home.” And the article: Pets could boost wellbeing as much as a wife or husband, study suggests

April 11, 2025 – I Remember with Kim Haynes Johnson

I Remember

I took pride in being the first of seven children
to go to a four-year university. It took me 6.5 years,
but I did it. I took pride in my first apartment
and paid my share of the rent. I was 22 and
worked 16 hours a week in a hospital.
I earned union wages with health care,
and at the same time I was enrolled fulltime
in a tuition-free state university.

I remember a decade later
when they decided to
apply a “trickle down” of wealth–
huge tax breaks for the richest–
Reaganomics, they called it.

I had finished school by then,
and I was working. I wasn’t paying close
attention to what trickled down: poverty,
hopelessness, and lower wages;
broken unions, no benefits for
part-time work, and no more
tuition-free education.

I remember they gave
the abundance to the rich,
instead of offering
the next generation of poor kids
a leverage out of poverty.

What used to be common millionaires
are now common billionaires, competing
to see who will be the first trillionaire.
Forty years of this economic injustice,
and we are now doubling down on it.

We need to remember

April 12, 2025 – Literacy Memories with Kate Sjostrom

I was in first grade when
Mrs. Rhodes read us
a sweet little book called
Disney’s Beaver Valley.

Imagine my surprise,
while shopping with my mom
in the grocery store,
when I saw a rack
of Tell-a-Tale books,
and there, shining brighter
than all others, was Beaver Valley.

“Mom, Mom, Mrs. Rhodes
read this to us today!
Wouldn’t she be surprised
if I had my own book like hers?”

My mom agreed that would
be surprised, and she bought it
for me. (That was not usual, AT ALL.)

I have always loved
my teachers,
books,
reading,
and my mom,
who knew that day that
it was worth spending the grocery money
to splurge on me. I have saved this book
for these sixty-some years.

April 13, 2025 Witness & Celebration: Poetry for Armenian Genocide Remembrance

Delicious tiny zucchini carefully scooped
Of their insides and filled with meat, rice, history.
Lebanese or Armenian? I think both, like you.
Made with love and hope in your Bahrain kitchen.
Always you are in my heart. Today Armenia is too.

April 14, 2025 – Finding a Safe Harbor with Padma Venkatraman

Bighorn Corridor Loop Trail
A Loop Poem

Just shy of two miles
Miles of quiet peace
Peace in being alone
Alone stressors cease

Cease your strivings
Strivings of forgetting
Forgetting I belong
Belong in this setting

Setting into this place
I know each long stride
Stride of hope and belonging
Belonging to Love as my guide

Kidlit Progressive Poem 2025

04/Apr/202530/Apr/2025 Denise Krebs9 Comments

It’s my turn to write a line for our dear progressive poem. I read Donna chose to write line 4 because she wanted to see if a rhyme would be appropriate. She decided she would add one–air/flair sound great in our newly-forming poem. I had no reason at all for picking line 5, but I’m glad to be here, even though I get nervous to add my line!

I decided to choose another verb to start the second stanza, but other than that it is wide open for what happens next. Now Buffy will take us to the next line.

Here is our Progressive Poem so far:

Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood
dappling daffodils with flair

Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
as hummingbirds thrum
in the blossoming Sweetgum.

Sing as you set up the easels
Dabble in the paints
echo the colors of lilacs and phlox
Commune without constraints

Breathe deeply the gift of the lilacs
Rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings
feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end
remember long-ago springs

Bask in a royal spring meadow
Romp like a golden-doodle pup!
Startle the sleeping grasshoppers
delight in each flowering shrub

Drinking in orange-blossom twilight
relax to the rhythm of stars dotting sky
as a passing Whip-poor-will gulps bugs
I follow a moon-lit path that calls us

Grab your dripping brushes!
Our celestial canvas awaits…
There we swirl, red, white, and blue
Behold what magic our montage creates!

Such wondrous palettes the earth bestows
When rain greens our hopes, watch them grow, watch them grow!

Contributors

April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 6 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
April 7 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose’s Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist at A Little Bit of This & That
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainely Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita Davis at fiction, instead of lies
April 22 Rose filled in for Patricia
April 23 Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at Write Time
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at MoreArt4All
April 27 Linda Baie at TeacherDance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors

Week 1 – Verselove 2025

03/Apr/202507/Apr/2025 Denise Krebs10 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday, and Matt Forrest Esenwine is hosting at his Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme blog. Matt has a poignant story about Lee Bennett Hopkins and the rainbow anthology that is dedicated to him, the Dear One.

On Saturday, I look forward to writing the next line in our progressive poem. I’ll share it Friday evening. My project for National Poetry Month is to write a poem daily with #Verselove. Here are the first few days of poems and prompts.

April 1, 2025 – The Verse Collector with Jennifer Guyor Jowett

To America, 2025
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
flames as it has flamed.
I hear America singing–
Believing what we don’t believe,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
God mend thine every flaw.

In order of appearance: Emma Lazarus, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Claude McKay, Katharine Lee Bates.

April 2, 2025 – When Spring Speaks in Tricubes with Leilya Pitre

Where have you
been, little
mama quail?

All winter–
stillness. Now
I recall

your faithful
nesting, your
darts and zips

April 3, 2025 – Borrowed Rhymes with Denise Krebs

Mi amiga, my friend,
Gracias por tu ayuda again
My skills are slowly creeping
I think of Spanish while I’m sleeping
You challenge my brain,
Our sweet friendship remains.

I used to study solo alone;
No ripples from the tiny stone.
Your knowledge lights my lamp,
brings me hope. I won’t damp-
en el entusiasmo’s light
Gracias, mi amiga, día y night

(Rhyming words for my poem are from verses 1 and 2 of “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel.)

April 4, 2025 – Oh! The Places You’ll Go with Dave Wooley

often I stay here
delighted with my vacation
spot homestead

April 5, 2025 – Scars with Bryan Ripley Crandall

I hold a handful
of scars—literally.
These ones all
on my left hand–
our old dachshund bit
six-year-old me, thinking
I was our aggressive beagle.
(He felt bad afterwards.)
With high school friends, I
attempted to slice a frozen English
muffin for a late-night snack—
but sliced my thumb instead,
(best to wait for the thawing).
The college sleepover mango-cutting
while working on breakfast
for the late sleepers turned out bad,
lots of blood and even fainting
as I watched the blood pour into the sink.
In seventh grade, I sliced off the knuckle
of my thumb, and as a seventh grade
teacher, I sliced off my
index fingernail–those last two
with an X-Acto knife.

Now, along with age spots
and arthritic knuckles,
the scars are hardly visible.
They have settled in
and found a home
on this valued hand,
a home of mercy and
remembering, a home of
gratitude and love.

April 6, 2025 – Where I’m From, Again! with Stacey Joy

I am from the post-war boxy and basic stucco, sides splitting with kids who seemed to marry just in time for the next ones

And my first apartment shared with an artist on Clark Avenue

And the windowed beauty with Terry and Christine

And the upstairs apartment where little Mia downstairs always wanted to play

And the hundred-year-old 16th Street house with a mouse and my new husband, who woke the neighbor steaming milk for his lattes

And the little ADU behind Mitch and Joyce’s where we made plum sauce from the best plum tree ever

And the wallpapered horror on Delaware Street in Iowa

And the freezing-water-pipe house on Arizona Avenue in Iowa

And our very first home purchase in Michigan where we planted a ginkgo

And the ranch house with a pool to survive the Phoenix summers

And the house that needed new windows (we realized after we bought it)

And the white-tiled, white-walled flat in Bahrain with dust and the call to prayer

And now, after a lifetime of homes, our little cabin continues daily calling out “home” to us.

April 7, 2025 – Villanelle on the Vine with Erica Johnson

Azaleas

A Villanelle

Take care of yourself for me
Your wounds draw a new start
Grace and nurture for you three

Both to give and receive is key
Good is here to fill your heart
Take care of yourself for me

Building onto the family tree
Is adding your own leafy art
Grace and nurture for you three

What will endure, you will see
On the route, these steps all part
Take care of yourself for me

With gentleness and care, just be
Many dewy dawnings dart
Grace and nurture for you three

Hard things you will not flee
The unnamed you will chart
Take care of yourself for me
Grace and nurture for you three

A whole webpage about azaleas, my favorite spring flower.

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Lamenting

03/Apr/202503/Apr/2025 Denise Krebs4 Comments

Today Ruth in Uganda is hosting with a beautiful psalm of lament. Since it’s Lent, she suggested, “Consider writing about lament, the traditional posture of Lent. If you want to include the poetry element, you might write your own Psalm of lament…”

I wrote a psalm with a stanza each of protest, petition, and praise. I know there are millennia full of terrible history and brokenness in this world, so I want to quit thinking God is always just on my side. God is just and true, and I’m sure God is not a member of a political party. I am trying to practice petitioning that all mockers, scoffers, liars, and haters be exposed, especially when I find myself in those groups.

Peace to all this Lenten season.