Early on, when I learned what the animal is for this year, I misread Horse for Hose, and Year of the Fire Hose seemed somehow quite appropriate. Made me giggle. Still does.
Thanks you, Jone, for organizing the New Year postcard exchange again! I had intended to carve, print, and hand-color an image again this year, but some tendon/joint/nerve issues in my right arm caused me to take a different direction. I chose the above image from my photos of our trip to Norway in September 2025 and wrote the series of haiku I’m sharing here. Each recipient got one of the haiku, but I thought y’all might like to see all four. And for those of you who didn’t partake in the joys of the exchange…here is your virtual postcard!
Write a poem after Wendell Berry’s “Like Snow”— word for word. Choose a subject: rain, a butterfly, granite, the ocean, anything. Berry’s poem is three lines long. Break down each line. In line one, replace the word “suppose” with something else: what if; in spite of; imagine etc., replace the pronoun and the verb, replace “snow” with your chosen subject. Do the same with the second and third lines. Be sure to write an epigraph that reads “after Wendell Berry”.
Like Snow by Wendell Berry
Suppose we did our work like the snow, quietly, quietly, leaving nothing out.
Like Stitching by Mary Lee Hahn after Wendell Berry
Perhaps we’re not the needle but rather the thread, steady, steady, weaving in and out.
If you look closely, there’s also a hint of William Stafford in my poem:
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Last Monday, I had the opportunity (along with lots of other Poetry Friday Peeps!) to learn, on a zoom organized by Georgia Heard, about making poetry comics from none other than Grant Snider, the author of POETRY COMICS! He even used the poem I submitted as one of his examples!! The title is “If Canvas Could Talk.”
Since our poetry challenge this month resulted in a poem the perfect size for a poetry comic, I couldn’t resist. I created the image at the beginning of this post during the zoom. Poetry comics are fun, they challenge your brain in a new way, and you don’t have to be too precious about the art to make something you can be proud of!
Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met this month’s challenge:
The Poetry Sisters challenge for this month was composing tricubes — poems with three stanzas, three lines in each stanza, and three syllables in each line. At our pep talk/work session last Sunday, we wondered collectively if we would post a single tricube, or if it made sense for them to come in groups of three.
Obviously, I decided on three.
The first was written after I went for a walk about two-thirds of the way through our total snow accumulation. It was magical. So quiet, so peaceful.
The second is not meant to take away from the tragedy of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but instead as a reminder that we need to guard ourselves from compartmentalizing our outrage and make sure we don’t just mourn the deaths of those who might look like us or love like us.
The third is a memo to myself that joy is a valid form of resistance, as are creativity and self care. There is a time to march, a time to call senators and send emails, a time to sign petitions…and a time to bake bread, mend a shirt, or stitch a memory from last fall’s trip to Norway.
Here’s what the other Poetry Sisters came up with this month:
Here’s another poem from the MoSt challenge. (Last week’s was, too.) This one was in response to challenge #14: Use orange, momentous, bucket, sweetheart, sweat, and longing. Mercurial was the bonus word. It was fun to write a poem that was entirely fictional!
Renee Good was, of course, a multitude of other beings as well. We all are.
But in 2020, she won one of Old Dominion’s most prestigious accolades, the American Academy of American Poets Prize.
Rajiv Mohabir was serving as a judge for the contest in 202o and selected her poem as the winner. He said “…he never had the chance to meet or interact with Ms. Good, as he was teaching in Boston then and the contest was held remotely that year. But he said he was struck by the poem’s idea that “we have to kill something in order to know it,” and since Ms. Good’s killing, has been ruminating on its ending words:
“that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths ‘make room for wonder’ —
all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:
This year, I tried a new-to-me way to let the Universe help me choose my OLW/Intention for 2026. About a week ago, I wrote down 13 Wishes for Me in 2026. Next, I wrote each of the 13 on its own small slip of paper that I then folded up and placed in a small blue bowl. Each day until yesterday, 12/31/25, I burned one or two of them out on the back sidewalk, so that I was left, today, with the one that would be my main focus. Excitedly, I opened the slip this morning and found…
Outdoor Walks
What? Out of all the lofty wishes I wished, THAT was the one the Universe picked for me? Really? I have to admit that I felt a little let down.
Until I went back and looked at my list of 13 Wishes. Outdoor Walks is smack dab in the middle of the list. It is the fulcrum on which all the other wishes balance. It is the heart and soul. The core. Without it, the others won’t exist.
Also, it turns out that if I want a single word to stand in for Outdoor Walks, there are at least 12 ways to name it…
PEREGRINATE (flâner, if you want the French version).
So it will be a year for peregrination, along with the other 12 wishes for 2026.
I’ll remember that “All who wander are not lost.” (J.R.R. Tolkien) and while I peregrinate, I will “Pay attention./Be astonished./Tell about it.” (Mary Oliver).
Gratitudes to all who signed up to host Poetry Friday roundups in the first six months of 2026. It was a bit nip-and-tuck to fill the last few slots (thanks for the help, Irene!), but you poets always come through! The complete roundup can be found in the sidebar here, and if you’d like for me to send you the code so you can have the list on your blog, just let me know.
This month, the Poetry Sisters are in conversation with the theme of light, hope, and peace. No form requirements, no length rules.
When we chatted last Sunday, Sara mentioned that she might write a limerick. Not necessarily poetry on the theme of light, but definitely light poetry (heh heh).
I snagged her idea and combined it with a core memory from a past Solstice celebration. Unearthing a photo from that long ago celebration resulted in a fun conversation with the head engineer and fudge-maker. He reminded me that our Fudgehenge was built pretty close to scale. And…it was so very yummy!
Here’s what what the other Poetry Sisters created:
I know that many of the Poetry Friday regulars get the same array of daily poetry newsletters and so this poem landed in your inbox too. But it has stuck with me and compelled me to read it over and over again.
It is a love letter to terror.
It elaborates on all the wonders of life that would not exist without the darkness of terror. Here on the brink of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, the coexistence of darkness and light are played out right outside our windows. Here in the United States, the coexistence of darkness and light are played out in the graft of politics and the care of neighbors for each other.
Last night in a conversation with like-minded folks, we talked about the importance of inviting grief or depression or negative thoughts to come in for a cup of cocoa; the importance of letting those visitors have their say and then kindly showing them to the door. I feel like this poem does just that, treating terror with merciful respect, while celebrating all the positive that exists because of terror.
The (Palestinian) poet writes
“I wrote this poem because I was thinking about security—how, in its name, we wage wars, round up political activists, install surveillance cameras, build walls, carry more weapons. How we cross to the other side of the street when we see someone approaching, avoid love, suspect kindness, and villainize the stranger.” —Dalia Taha
and the translator writes
“While translating Dalia Taha’s ‘Enter Terror,’ I kept looking over my shoulder to check that ‘terror’ was, in fact, what was being so tenderly addressed—and not something much less sinister. The speaker in this poem cannot imagine a world without terror. If this poem acts subversively, it does so by repurposing the worst shape of fear—terror—as companion; like love, it keeps us restlessly awake to the world’s beauty and ruin.” —Sara Elkamel
Here are a couple of my favorite parts of Enter Terror:
Without you, no one would read the same sentence a second time, breathless, before setting the book aside to pace from one room to the next. And without you, there would be no lines to draw under striking lines in the books of poetry and philosophy that now rest serenely by your bed, after having moved universes; after changing worlds.
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…without you people would not gather on pitch black nights; they would not light candles or invent lullabies. Without you, no one would ever know that stories told in whispers are the only way to contend with night.
Which lines resonated with you?
Michelle has this week’s Poetry Friday round up at MoreArt4All.
Interested in hosting a Poetry Friday roundup in January – June 2026? There are still spaces available! The signup is here.
A(nother) Year of Reading 