To begin with, here are a few verses from one of my favorites, Psalm 19. This portion celebrates how the sun and other works of nature declare the glory of God.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. 5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. 6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
As I sit here on Friday afternoon in the A/C, feeling a little too warm and wondering if it will be cool enough for an evening walk, I began thinking again about summer.
I have a full summer with lots of goodness planned. Here are some of the events and rhythms of my summer.
Summering 2025
Family BBQs and celebrations
Summer Reading Program
No King’s Day Protest and more
My grandson’s third birthday party
Dana Point for our 42nd anniversary
Hiking and biking early, before the heat
Minnesota to see my expecting daughter
Campaign volunteer for Claiborne for Congress
Writing a poem a day for the Stafford Challenge
Continue reading, praying, deconstructing, and reconstructing my faith in Jesus. (I will not give up, despite the way the church in America seems to be giving up on Jesus for political power.)
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 loudclatter 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!
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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?
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.”
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.)
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.
