Poetry Friday: Fireflies (Poetry Friday Roundup is Here This Week!)

Hello friends! I am happy to be hosting Poetry Friday this week. I am in the United States at the moment, on summer break from my usual home in Kampala, Uganda, so our usual time zone issues do not apply. I'm on Eastern Standard Time, and in the land of fast internet, and I'm not teaching, so your head may spin with the speed at which I will round up your contributions (the old-fashioned way)! Leave your link in the comments. Comment moderation is enabled so you won't see your comment immediately.

 

It looks as though I have participated in Poetry Friday only twelve times this school year. I haven't written many poems this year, either, or even read all that many. My focus these days is slightly different because I'm not teaching English any more, but I still love the opportunity to be immersed in poetry. The news may be all bad, all the time, but there are still beautiful words, like fireflies in a jar, giving out some light. For today's roundup, I decided to focus on fireflies, a perfect metaphor for ephemeral beauty. Here are some poems about them.

 

Fireflies

by Marilyn Kallet

 

In the dry summer field at nightfall,

fireflies rise like sparks.

Imagine the presence of ghosts 

flickering, the ghosts of  young friends, 

your father nearest in the distance.

This time they carry no sorrow,

no remorse, their presence is so light.

Childhood comes to you,

memories of your street in lamplight,

holding those last moments before bed,

capturing lightning-bugs,

with a blossom of the hand

letting them go. Lightness returns,

an airy motion over the ground

you remember from Ring Around the Rosie.

If you stay, the fireflies become fireflies

again, not part of your stories,

as unaware of you as sleep, being

beautiful and quiet all around you.  

Fireflies in the Garden

by Robert Frost

 

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies;

And here on earth come emulating flies, 

That though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart)

Achieve at times a very star-like start.

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

 

 

What do you have to share this week?

 

Jane was inspired by a ferry boat to write some haiku. (She also has a book coming out!)

 

Robyn is celebrating Pride Month with rainbows and a literary auction. 

 

Rose is honoring the memory of Katey Howes with a review of her new book and a short poem inspired by it.

 

Michelle is focusing on defending democracy and on nature. She shares a poem and a photo with us.

 

Jama is sharing a Richard Jones poem just right for Father's Day, plus some recipes for madeleines.

 

Mary Lee has written a "Chant of a June Garden," full of plant goodness.

 

Laura has a poem this week about a snail, from Rings of Heartwood, a new book for kids by Molly Beth Griffith.

 

Marcie has a post full of treasures, including her list of the "Art of Summering." 

 

Linda's hosting a Clunker Exchange today. Here are the instructions: 1) Choose a line from the list, which you can change however you want, and "leave a clunker line of your own as exchange in the comments."

 

Matt has an important poem that he wrote about his college best friend. 

 

Carol has good words about the reality that springtime can be a time of sadness. 

 

Tabatha, like so many of us, is thinking of immigration and democracy.

 

Irene has the next installment of ArtSpeak: PICASSO, a poem called "Self-Portrait as Don Quixote." 

 

Patricia shares an interview with her sister, poet Kathy Pon, about Pon's new chapbook.

 

Sarah Grace is thinking about fires both literal and figurative, and she also has a way to download a pdf copy of her chapbook of protest poetry, or even get hard copies. 

 

Jone has a link to a poem written by a friend who recently passed away, and she's also discovered a new Irish poet. 

 

Carol just got back from Yosemite, and found some poems about it from 1917!

 

Margaret has a book coming out too, and hers is a biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet. She shares a praise poem about Paillet. 

 

Diane is in with some quiet time and a letter to a dream.

SJT June: Summering

Ramona is our host this month for Spiritual Journey Thursday. Her prompt for us is as follows:

 

"Since retirement, summer no longer has the delicious allure of a respite from the hectic days of teaching. My move to NC has put me in the thick of summer humidity and mosquitoes after 26 Seattle summers. (Can you tell that I'm finding it hard to embrace summer in my new state?) This theme is an invitation to each of you to help me find "summer love". Do you have particular spiritual rhythms for summering? Is there a book out there like Katherine May's Wintering for summer?"

 

 

I didn't post yesterday, on the actual Spiritual Journey Thursday, because it was our last day of school. It was a half day with kids, followed by a teacher lunch that went on well into the afternoon. Graduation is tomorrow, so our school year isn't fully over, but we're definitely almost there. 

 

Ramona asked us about spiritual rhythms for summering. Unlike her, I am still teaching, so summer is a blessed break. The rhythms slow down, and there's some much-needed rest. This summer will contain some travel, some professional development (I'm doing an online AP teaching course), some time with family and friends, and more reading than usual. (I just heard that Walter Brueggemann died yesterday. I've read his Collected Sermons, but I also have his book The Prophetic Imagination on my Kindle, and I haven't read it yet, so that's going on my list for the summer.) Notice I didn't even mention writing; I do so little of that these days. But I'm hosting Poetry Friday next week, so we'll see how that goes.

 

My focus lately has been trying to take things as they come, not worrying about the future but living in today. World events make that challenging, as they always do. But here's something from Walter Brueggemann:

 

"There is something hidden, inscrutable, playful, and unresolved about our human lives that warns us not to be too sure. Such a claim is odd and uncomfortable for us, because it robs us of deep certainty and ultimate control. We may say even more. That hidden inscrutable, playful dimension of our life is an arena in which the purposes of God may be at work among us in ways we do not even recognize. This hiddenness must be honored and taken seriously, because it is a way in which God does for us more than we can do for ourselves. The big word for this hidden power of God is providence. It means that God sees before (pro-video), that God knows well ahead of us and takes the lead in our lives. This is not the same as being 'fated,' or having our lives settled in the stars. It is rather a claim that God is a real power in our lives, and is not simply a shadow or mirror of our own good intentions. God takes initiatives for our lives which may run counter to our own best intentions. Faithful people pay attention to this hiddenness, and are willingly led by it." Walter Brueggemann, from The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann.

 

Check out what everyone else wrote on this topic here.

Reading Update

Book #41 of 2025 was Clytemnestra, by Costanza Casati. This retelling of Clytemnestra's story is violent and harsh. What was it like to grow up Spartan? How was her relationship with her sister Helen, who would become Helen of Troy? What about her first marriage? What about her monstrous second husband, Agamemnon? If you're very into this whole story like I am, it's a must read.

 

Book #42 was The Wild Silence, by Raynor Winn. This is the second in a three book series; I read the first one earlier this year and I'm looking forward to reading the third. 

Book #43 was Here One Moment, by Liane Moriarty. This book was so much fun, so unpredictable, and ultimately so affecting -- the ending made me cry. It's about the future, and death, and how we live our lives. We're here one moment, and maybe gone the next.

 

Book #44 was The Star-Apple Kingdom, by Derek Walcott. This book of poetry by Caribbean poet Walcott will need several re-readings, but even though I didn't get all the references my first time through, it was so beautifully written that I enjoyed it anyway.

 

Book #45 was The Life-Cycle of the Common Octopus, by Emma Knight. This is a very readable novel about Canadians studying in Scotland, how our families influence us, and the dynamics of friendship. Trigger warning for inappropriate teacher-student affair.

Book #46 was Swan Song, by Elin Hilderbrand. This was my fourth book by this author, who writes about Nantucket and badly behaved rich people.

 

Book #47 was Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, by Katie J. Davis and Beth Clark. Katie moved to Uganda when she was still a teenager. This is the story of how that went. Some of our students at school have been reading it and talking about it.

 

Book #48 was Sunrise on the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins. I've been reading these Hunger Games books since the first one came out. I of course didn't expect this one to have a happy ending, since it's about Haymitch, and we all know from the other books how he turned out. But I wasn't expecting it to be quite as relentlessly bleak as it was. This came out in March and I had to wait for a library copy to be ready for me to download. I couldn't put it down, and zipped through it.

 

Book #49 was Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick. Speaking of bleak. This book came out in 2009, but the version I read had an afterword with updates going up to 2021. It's based on interviews with people who defected from North Korea, and it's very hard to read in places because their lives were just so grim. 

One of the highlights of this school year was getting to read Gary D. Schmidt's book Okay for Now with a group of seventh graders. I have read this book with many seventh grade classes, but it had been a while. I decided to post this one as this year's book #50, even though I've read it many times before, because it felt so good to discuss a novel with middle schoolers again.

Reading Update

Book #27 of the year was L'Énigme du Retour, by Dany Laferrière. I downloaded it a while ago because I was craving reading something Haitian, preferably something not about death and misery. This book, though it was published in 2009, was about death and misery, in its own way. After the death of his father, the protagonist, exiled in Canada, returns to Haiti and reflects on what he sees and experiences. Here's an English translation. 

Book #28 was Lady Tan's Circle of Women, by Lisa See. This story, set in 15th century China, is a fascinating look at the life of a wealthy woman who learns about medicine and caring for other women's health. 

Book #29 was Digging in the Dirt: Musings on Missions, Emotions, and Life in the Mud, by Jonathan Trotter. I enjoyed these essays on cross-cultural living and working.

 

Book #30 was Glory Over Everything: Beyond the Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom. I read this with my book group. It was the sequel to The Kitchen House (reviewed in this post), which we enjoyed. I think I liked this one even more, though it was equally painful, since it too was about slavery. This one was also about the Underground Railroad and people who lived in the Great Dismal Swamp. It's almost unbearably suspenseful and exciting. 

Book #31 was a reread; I actually read it a couple of times this school year because I taught it to my AP French students. It's Petit Pays, by Gaël Faye. (You can find an English version here.) This book is so good and so well-written. It's also an introduction to the story of the Rwandan genocide. For all of my students this year, it was their first French novel. We also watched the movie when we were finished reading it. Highly recommended!

 

Book #32 was Within Arm's Reach, by Ann Napolitano, a saga of an Irish-American family living in New Jersey.

 

Book #33 was A Long Way Home: A Memoir, by Saroo Brierley. It's the almost incredible story of an Indian boy who gets lost on a train journey with his older brother. When the brother disappears, Saroo, who is only 5, wanders off on his own and ends up on the street in Calcutta. What happens next, and then when he is an adult, makes for amazing reading.

 

Book #34 was The Family Under the Bridge, by Natalie Savage Carlson. Our librarian recommended this when I was looking for a story set in Paris. This middle grade novel won a Newbery Honor in 1959. I enjoyed it.

 

Book #35 was The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn. Brought to the end of themselves by a series of terrible blows, Ray and Moth decide to set off on a walk of 630 miles. This true story is both upsetting and inspiring, and it's also an affecting description of homelessness.

 

Book #36 was this year's Newbery winner,  The First State of Being, by Erin Entrada Kelly. I liked the setting, a few months ahead of Y2K, and the time travel aspect. 

Book #37, Conclave, by Robert Harris, was recommended online by someone after the recent death of the Pope. It's an interesting story in its own right, but it's also a good way to learn about how the process works as the conclave chooses a new Pope.

 

Book #38 was Burn, by Peter Heller. I've read several of Heller's books, and this one includes many of the same elements as the others. Outdoors (including birds), heart-thumping action, apocalyptic setting, and sad back-story. I thought this one was terrific.

 

Book #39 was The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, another book club choice. I read this when it first came out in the 90s, but I had forgotten many of the details. It's very well-written and a thought-provoking retelling of the story of Jacob and his family from the Bible. This version is extremely different! The protagonist is Dinah, Jacob's daughter.

 

Book #40 was Pay Attention, Carter Jones, by Gary D. Schmidt. I have read lots of Schmidt's books and shared them with students, but last week I listened to a podcast about Schmidt and noted that there are a few that I haven't read yet. This was one. If you like Schmidt's style as I do, you'll like this one.

 

SJT May: Blossoming

 

I have been very uneven in my participation in Spiritual Journey Thursday so far this year, but I felt I really needed to participate this month (even though I'm a day late). Carol, our host, just lost her husband, and yet is able to post about blossoming. So if she can, I can too.

 

Here in Central Uganda we don't have the same seasons as in the northern hemisphere, but this is rainy season, and the abundant rain contributes to the constant greenness of our area. And yes, blossoming of one kind or another all year round. Here are some recent blossom photos (all taken in April):

 

When I went looking for Bible verses about flowers, I found that most of them are about the temporary nature of these beautiful blossoms.  Like our lives on earth, flowers don't last forever, but while they are here, we can enjoy them. And as Luke 12:27 says, "Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." Even in our short-lived days, God takes care of us.

 

Although it isn't really spring here, it is definitely exam season, and that's keeping me extremely busy. But nevertheless, here's to blossoming in May! Check out what everyone else is posting here.

The Progressive Poem is finished!

You can read the whole thing here!

Line 28

Here.

Line 26

Here it is!

Progressive Poem Line 23

 

 

Today it's my turn to add a line to the Progressive Poem.  It's also my blog birthday; today I've been blogging for 18 years. The Progressive Poem has been around for 13 of those years, since 2012. I've participated in all of them! 

We're coming to the end of our April day, with twilight and stars. I decided we needed some more birds, since we haven't had any since the second stanza. Here are a couple of links where you can see and hear this particular bird (in real life, you're much more likely to hear him than see him): here and here. My line is in bold below. Looking forward to seeing what comes next!

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 lilac and phlox
commune without constraints

 

Breathe deeply the gifts of 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

 

 

April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
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

 

Lines 19 and 20

Here.

Line 18

Here's Line 18. 

 

 

April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose’s Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly 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 at {fiction instead of lies}
April 22 Patricia Franz
April 23 Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
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

Catching up

I've been away on a camping trip for the last few days. You can catch up on the lines for the Progressive Poem here.

 

 

Line 13

Here it is!

Line 12

Here it is!

Lines 10 and 11

Read them here.

Line 9

Tabatha's added it!

Lines 7 and 8

You can read them both here.

Line 6

Buffy's brought birds into the Progressive Poem, and you know I approve of that!

Line 5

Denise has added it!

And Line 4!

Donna's added it. 

Line 3 of the Progressive Poem

Robyn has added the third line!

 

April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose’s Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly 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 at TanitasDavis.com
April 22 Patricia Franz
April 23 Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
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

NPM Day 3: SJT April: Lament

Welcome, SJT friends! I'm glad to be hosting today and I'm looking forward to reading what you share. Leave your post in the comments and I will round them up. I have comment moderation enabled, so you won't see your comment right away. I'll get to it as fast as I can.

 

The topic I chose today, given that we're in the second half of Lent, is Lament. The world has plenty to lament right now, and I suggested writing a Psalm of Lament. I wrote about this topic some here during the pandemic, and I quoted Aaron Niequist saying that a third of the Psalms in the Bible are about lament, whereas zero percent of modern worship songs are. 

Here's my Psalm of Lament. I'm thinking of many people and places dear to me, but Haiti is always, always on my mind.

Lament

Lord,
our knees are sore
from praying,
our eyes are sore
from weeping.

How long, O Lord,
will
we wait

for health
for comfort
for change
for home
for justice?

How long
will
we see
the wicked prosper?

Have you seen
our trouble?
Do you care?
Have you forgotten us?

Rescue us!
We’re begging you!
Pull us from the flames,
from under the building collapsed in the earthquake,
from the waves where we’re drowning.
Save us!

Take away
the violence
the hatred
the displacement
the grief:
Give us a world full of your love,
a table where we can sit in peace and eat our meal,
a bed where we can sleep quietly at night.

Open the gate to the garden again
and let us in!

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

Patricia's post is here, and she's written a heartfelt Psalm of Lament.

 

Karen just saw the migration of the Sandhill Cranes, and she's written a beautiful post full of gratitude. Oh, Karen, I hope to see that someday, and in the meantime, thank you so much for sharing it! You're right; sometimes lament can wait! 

Linda wrote a lovely post on lament and different ways it presents itself in the world. 

Bob has struggles that he's put into his own Psalm of Lament. Praying for Kathy! 

Margaret is home with Covid. "I am the one whose branches are broken," she writes in her Psalm.

 

Fran modeled her writing on Psalm 13 and reminded us that Biblical lament always ends with coming back to deep trust in God.

 

Denise came back to praise too, in her rhyming lament, and she shares the structure: "Protest, Petition, and Praise." 

 

Ramona wrote a Cento of Lament, taking lines from each of the previous posts. 

Carol is facing a moment of lament in her life, with the recent loss of her husband of 48 years. We're grieving with you, Carol!

NPM Day 2

You can read line 2 of the Progressive Poem here.

 

Here is the complete list of participants. There are 3 openings left at the end of the month. If you'd like to join us and write a line, visit Margaret Simon at this link and leave her a comment.

• April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
• April 2 Tricia Stohr-Hunt 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 Silverman 
• April 7 Jone Rush MacCulloch
• April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
• April 9 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference 
• April 10 Marcie Flinchum Atkins
• April 11 Rose Capelli at Imagine the Possibilities 
• April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
• April 13 Cathy Stenquist
• 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 
• April 22 Patricia Franz
• April 23 Ruth at There’s no such thing as a Godforsaken town
• April 24 Linda Kulp Trout 
• April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
• April 26 Michelle Kogan 
• April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
• April 28
• April 29
• April 30

 

NPM Day 1

Today the annual Progressive Poem gets started over at Linda's blog, A Word Edgewise.

Reading Update

Book #13 of 2025 was Once a Queen, by Sarah Arthur. I heard someone on a podcast saying that this book was inspired by Queen Susan from the Narnia stories. It didn't fulfill all the expectations that raised in me, but I did enjoy it and I'd like to read the next book in the series. "What we thought was the final chapter is merely the prologue."

 

Book #14 was All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker. I read this with my book group, and while the conversations about it were great as always, I didn't love this one. I found it confusing and implausible. 

Book #15 was The Lost Story, by Meg Shaffer. I picked up this book, like #13, because of its Narnia-adjacent promise. Again, I didn't find the promise fulfilled completely.

 

Book #16 was The Liturgy of the Ordinary, by Tish Harrison Warren, a reread. I picked this up to stop me from reading and rereading the news, and it really worked, calming my heart and mind. I'm already going through it again.

 

Book #17 was People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry. This was light and entertaining.

 

Book #18 was another reread, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. I read this before the pandemic, and loved it then. I think I liked it even more this time.

 

Book #19 was The Plan, by Kendra Adachi. I love Adachi's podcast, and this book has the same encouraging, friendly advice on time management. I was glad I had read it.

 

Book #20 was The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. While not as good as Braiding Sweetgrass, one of the best books I read in 2021, this was very interesting and encouraging. It's about gift economies and how not everything is about scarcity and money. Just what I needed to read in this moment. 

Book #21 was another one I read with my book club, The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom. This was very atmospheric, even though the atmosphere was grim in the extreme. The sad story, about people with no choice trapped in the horrific system of slavery, kept me reading until the last page.

 

Book #22 was Circle of Grace, by Jan Richardson. I love Richardson's poems, and I was so glad to read this book. I will reread it many times, I'm sure.

 

Book #23 was A Place for Us, by Fatima Farheen Mirza, a well-written and absorbing novel about an Indian Muslim family. 

Book #24 was The Wishing Game, by Meg Shaffer. kind of a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for grownups. I enjoyed it a lot.

 

Book #25 was Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, by Harrison Scott Key. It's a memoir about how he became a writer, writing his first book, and the book tour. It was interesting, but it didn't help that I'd already read his more recent book. The information I had about what was coming couldn't be un-known.

 

Book #26 was A Place at the Table, by Miranda Harris and Jo Swinney. After Harris' tragic death in 2019, Swinney, her daughter, found a folder of a book she'd been working on about hospitality. Swinney finished the book and included excerpts from her mother's journals and letters. Harris and her husband founded the Christian conservation organization A Rocha. I loved this book. 

 

Reading Update

Book #5 of 2025 was Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout. I've mostly found that the books by Strout that I've read in the past have been about loneliness. This one had lonely people in it too, but it was also about friendships and how people interact with each other. 

Book #6 was The Comfort of Crows, by Margaret Renkl. I loved this gentle look at a backyard in Nashville. 

Book #7 was North Woods, by Daniel Mason. In this novel we see centuries of events in one small plot of ground in Western Massachusetts. I liked some sections more than others, but overall this kept me reading. I especially liked the ending.

 

Book #8 was This Motherless Land, by Nikki May. This was presented to me as a retelling of Mansfield Park, which intrigued me because I couldn't imagine an updating of that book. It's really not at all what I was expecting. The only Mansfield Park related thing is the unfortunate cousin coming to live with the wealthy cousins. Plus there are some people in it called the Bertrams. It was a good story, though, and I enjoyed the Nigeria/England aspect of it. 

Book #9 was The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis. I reread the Narnia books in times of great stress, which this is turning out to be.

 

Book #10 was I Cheerfully Refuse, by Lief Enger. I really enjoyed this story set in the near future in the US. Everything has pretty much collapsed, including literacy, but the main character's wife, Lark, has a bookstore. And there's an epic boat trip. This was a perfect read for me.

 

Book #11 was Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese. This is such an amazing book. I just read Verghese's more recent book, The Covenant of Water, and liked it so much that I had to go looking for this one too. It's set mostly in Ethiopia, which is a big draw for me, but I also loved the parts in the United States. Like the other novel, this one has a big focus on medical issues, but this one is about a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. At the end, Verghese mentions John Irving in his acknowledgements, and I thought, oh yeah, that's who this book reminded me of. Verghese has the same sense of the weirdness of individual humans. These characters are absolutely unforgettable and I just wish Verghese would write faster. 

Book #12 was The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with recipes), by Kate Lebo. I expected this to be more poetry than it was. It was interesting to learn about the different fruits, but this was mostly a book of personal essays about Lebo's own experiences, not just with the fruits but with life in general.

Poetry Friday: Writing Group

I'm in a new writing group. I can hardly say it out loud. The last time I was in a writing group was when I was still in Haiti. By the time I left there, the members were already in several different time zones. It got too complicated to work out meetings. Now I'm meeting with someone (just two of us so far) in person, across from each other at a real wooden table instead of on Zoom. Is it real? It feels too good to be true.

We've only met once. We shared some work. Then the other group member showed me a poem she'd written in addition to her prose piece. It brought tears to my eyes. I asked to take a photo of it with my phone. She said yes, and I did. I remembered how much I love writing and being around writing, especially now that I'm teaching something different. 

I've written so little since moving here. I make myself do Birdtober and I've participated in the Poetry Month here (March), writing daily. I have a few things in my folder. But maybe I'll have more now.

Here's something I wrote in March. Like my friend's poem, it's about motherhood. Hers was better. But at least I wrote.

Bedtime


Then:
stories
songs
hugs and kisses
quiet

Now:
quiet

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

Miss Rumphius has this week's roundup.

Reading Update

Book #2 of 2025 was April's Grave, by Susan Howatch. This is a novel I'd never heard of before, and I thought I had read all of Susan Howatch's work. I found it among used books donated to a Ugandan NGO. Turns out there are a few more novellas like this one, published in 1974 and out of print. You can definitely see the Howatch style at work, but this is short, unlike her usual enormously long works. 

Book #3 was Light on Snow, by Anita Shreve. This is a terribly sad, but ultimately redemptive story of a father and daughter who find an abandoned baby.

Book #4 was The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese. Set in South India, this is a sprawling story of multiple generations of a family. I found it on several end-of-year lists for 2024, and inevitably it was named as a favorite. It was so good and so absorbing that now I will definitely have to read his other book that everyone is always talking about, Cutting for Stone.

Fifteen Years

Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Although it was a long time ago now, I still remember the details of that afternoon and evening, and the aftermath, with great clarity. I've written about it so much here, especially in the months I spent with my children in the US right after it happened. I couldn't stop replaying it, thinking of all the different aspects of the suffering it caused. 

Now, of course, Haiti is in a different kind of crisis. Here's RFI's article from today, commemorating the earthquake and describing the current situation.

Poetry Friday: 2025 Bird of the Year

Before 2023 I didn't know that the American Birding Association had a Bird of the Year, but they do! In 2023 it was the Belted Kingfisher and last year it was the Golden-winged Warbler. This year they have just announced that they have chosen the Common Loon. (At that link you can see the beautiful illustration that Ojibwe artist Sam Zimmerman did of it for the cover of Birding magazine.) 

The podcast I listened to about the choice and the article on the ABA website both emphasize the fact that this bird is most known for its sound. The Wikipedia article on the Common Loon includes a list of movies that used its call for maximum creepiness, including many set in places where this bird definitely does not live. (Scroll all the way down to the Popular Culture section.)

 

I chose this wonderful poem to honor the Common Loon today. I especially like these lines: "Their wails like wolves, their/ calls like an echo without origin, their/ calls like an echo of lake, or what makes lake/ lake."

Joy

by Miller Oberman

 

 

Like the time I dreamt about a loon family,

just some common loons—not metaphors

in any way, just real loons in a lake swimming

near each other so it was clear they were a set,

preferring each other’s company in the cold

still lake with its depth of reflected pines.

Here's the rest.

Kat has today's roundup.

Poetry Friday: Another Heron

Last February I posted about the fifteen heron species I had seen. (I've also seen five kinds of egrets, which are technically also herons, but I'm sticking with the ones with heron in their name.) Over the break from school, I saw a new one, a sixteenth: the Goliath Heron! It's the largest of all heron species, and I saw it on a boat ride on the Nile.

Here's a Galway Kinnell poem about a different kind of heron we have here in Uganda. I took his last line and used it to start my own poem about our boat ride.

The Gray Heron

It held its head still

while its body and green

legs wobbled in wide arcs

from side to side.

Click here to read about the near-mystical experience that came next.

 

 

Possibilities


Could I change into something else?
I wonder

as we sail down the Nile
and our guide Moses explains what’s in front of us
in the last week of the year

I peer at other lives through my binoculars:

Multicolored flying flowers,
the Red-throated Bee-eaters
flit back and forth

A lone elephant
eats steadily,
as it must do up to 20 hours a day
to maintain its enormous size.

Raucous laughter from
Eastern Plantain-eaters.
suggest they’re just tickled with the whole wacky world.

Fish-Eagles
survey their territory
from the top of ancient trees

Black Crakes
rush busily
through the reeds

And there’s the Goliath Heron,
enormous and solitary,
fishing patiently in the river.

Could I be one of them?
New year, new me?
Could I exchange my worries for theirs?

Moses tells us calmly
how lucky we are to see all of these creatures
as we sail back to the shore
where we actually live.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

Mary Lee has today's roundup. 

 

 

SJT and OLW, plus the first Reading Update of 2025

Happy New Year! Today is the first SJT (Spiritual Journey Thursday) of the year. Our host today is Margaret (thanks for hosting, Margaret!) and our topic is our OLW, or One Little Word, for 2025. 

 

 

Once again I have given my OLW a lot of thought, and once again I am sticking with the same word. This is the third year I will be using the word Feather. Here is what I wrote about this word in 2023, when it was mostly about lightness, and here are my reflections from 2024, in which I shared a poem by Matthew Brenneman that included the line "there's something to be said/For feathering a kind of heaven/On a few twigs and some frayed bits of thread,/From what she finds that she is given." In 2024 I continued gathering feathers on my birding walks and sticking them in bottles and containers in my house and on my desk at work. At this time of my life they seem appropriate decorations for my empty nest - ephemeral and fragile and yet tough as all get-out. In 2025 all those resonances of feathers will, I imagine, continue to be important to me. I still want to cultivate and collect lightness and beauty and stop taking everything so seriously all the time. But I've just been reading the book below, so here's some more of what I'm learning and thinking about: John Stott, well-known theologian and birder who died in 2011, has a chapter about the passages from the Bible in which God is compared to a female bird who is sheltering her chicks under her wings. Another picture of feathers.

This image of God's protection is a complicated one, because I always think of the people around the world who suffer so much, who are seemingly abandoned by God's lovingkindness. In Haiti, for example, over 700,000 people are internally displaced, chased from their homes by ruthless gangs. And those are the people who have survived the massacres of this past year. Oh God, extend the shelter of your feathers to these innocent victims! 

 

Book #1 of 2025 was The Birds Our Teachers by John Stott. This book appears to be out of print, so I've linked to the least expensive version I can find on Amazon. I bought my copy at a warehouse of used books in Mukono, Kampala. The books were shipped here from other countries where they were donated, and they are being sold by an NGO to fund their work. I've been wanting to read this book for a long time. Is it fanciful to imagine that some kind of providence brought it here to this city where I unexpectedly find myself? Can I believe that and at the same time hold room in my brain for people living with next to nothing on the streets or in the parks and schools and gymnasiums of another city where I found myself for 25 years? And living there not because of an earthquake, as happened in 2010, but because of their own countrymen? How can I believe that God's care for me goes as far as to send me the books I need to read exactly when I need them, and yet other people don't even have the modest places to live that they used to? I'm not sure, but I'm grateful that one of the boxes I went through looking for books for our school library had this one, and that for a few thousand shillings, I was able to bring it home.