Mindful Poetry Gathering- January 17, 2024

Simply wondrous.

Thank you to all who attended our Mindful Poetry Gathering! We listened and contemplated the poem "Wondrous" by Sarah Freligh. Stacy Sims opened our session with a meditation focusing on feeling OK. Ellen Austin-Li facilitated our exploration of the poem and we had a special reading by poet, Sarah Freligh, herself!

Writing Prompt: Think of a time when you sensed something (see, hear, smell, taste, touch) like a song, a smell, an image, or reading a book, and that thing took you back to a memory. Or, invent such a time. Write what comes. Follow your muse!

Watch the Gathering on YouTube

Join our next Gathering February 21, 2024

Connect with Ellen Austin-Li–
Website
Twitter (X)
Instagram
Facebook

Connect with Sarah Freligh–
Website
Read Sarah's book featuring "Wondrous": "Sad Math"

Read poems created by the group below. And send us your poem to include!

Poems inspired by "Wondrous" by Sarah Freligh.

Have a poem you'd like us to post here? Reach out to bryce@thewell.world.

OK Dirt
BY Bryce Kessler

Pushing my cart with a sticky wheel through
the glass doors of the supermarket garden center
I'm hit with that smell

not the liminal no-smell of the shopping isles
but something like cardboard
of dirt and dust and maybe birdseed

and I know I've been here before
in my backyard
when my world was small and my hands even smaller

When Dad brought home bushes to plant
and we shoveled holes into the wet earth,
grabbed worms from their hiding places
and chucked them across the yard–
"Food for the birds!" I yelled.

Now, I don't live in that house
and I never saw those bushes grow
or the birds eat those worms I threw,

But they are not lost
I know they are still there
and that is OK.

HERE, GONE
By Julie Klear Essakalli

It’s funny -
His ice blue eyes
Working hands
Curious mind
Unintended distant heart
Music head
Bubble space
All the stuff we did
Not to mention
The creeks, city sidewalks, ancient paths
How he made me laugh
How I made him laugh
How I annoyed him
And he annoyed me too
All the years
Stacked over time
Of being little together
Then being big together
Having spouses, babies, and lives
Not having to explain
Shared adventures
As we lived our tandem lives
How in one second
He’s all there
In full color, smiles, and worldly Toledo air
And the next,
He’s all gone
All of it.
Will anyone else write
A poem about what he was
Except for me?

Marble Cake Cat
by Holly Brians Ragusa

My cats’ ashes live in small containers on my bookshelf
Stories all their own
Alive in those smokey bones

Missing are some of the stories
That had gone long before I knew to keep them
And yet

Nestled next to small whiskered faces that live on in photographs
Now smeared in memory and stacked in small boxes
Is the Marble Cake Cat 

A storybook much loved by my child self
Its tattered cover, molding
From young greasy hands and countless tears

Pages smudged and pulling against a broken spine 
Much like my cats were by the time they were threadbare
And ready to live on shelves

The Marble cake cat just wanted a home
A good home and wanted to be loved
That cat lived many lives before finding the right one 

And I feel that I’ve done that
That we’ve done that
Wanting to be loved

Looking to homes outside of ourselves
Until we discover the soft places we can offer
Our battered covers and broken spines

"The Marble Cake Cat"

Barefoot Summers
by Alisa Smith

Walking through tall grass takes me back
to my childhood summers in south Georgia

watching the tadpoles in the creek,
lazing comfortably in the hot sun,
chasing after butterflies,
searching earnestly for four leaf clovers,

closing my eyes and
blowing on fluffy white dandelion seeds,
riding my bike down dirt roads, carefree,
watching the ants at work,

climbing the big oak tree in Grandmama's yard,
playing hopscotch and Mother May I,
roaming in the woods through the tall Appling Pines,
playing barefoot with cousins and friends

until I hear my mother yell my name
and I notice the street lights are on
and I must go home.