Tag: Nature

Poetry Friday: A Trio of Tricubes

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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:

Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect 

Amy has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at The Poem Farm.

(All three poems and the image are ©Mary Lee Hahn, 2026)

Slice of Life: Our More-Than-Human Neighbors

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

There was a hit-and-run vehicular homicide on the street in front of our house last week.

An SUV hit one of our neighbors and took off without checking to see if she was okay. She was not. The Division of Wildlife was called, who redirected the call to the police. Two squad cars came. A shot was fired. A body was removed. Her herd came back that evening to check on her, but she was gone.

A couple of weeks ago, it was The Squirrel With The Short Tail who I found murdered in the street in front of our house. She received a solemn trashcan funeral and a prayer for the forgiveness of humans in too big of a hurry to let little ones get across the street to the Burr Oak Buffet. With sassy Short Tail gone the squirrel crew who cleans up under our bird feeder was a little lost before they finally held auditions for Big Boss Squirrel.

In happier news, the hawks who sit on the power lines that run alongside the railroad tracks up the block are still helping to keep the population of rodents in check (cycle of life, not murder), and the mockingbird who flits from the woods at Bull Moose Run to those same power lines (further down the road) is still flitting. My nose tells me that our skunk friends are starting to wake up, and the chipmunks have come out from under our neighbor’s fence to hide in our woodpile between seed-grabbing forays under the bird feeder when the squirrels aren’t looking. The birds are getting loud — wrens, chickadees, cardinals, downies and hairies and flickers, robins, nuthatches, titmice, finches, and even still a few juncos. A couple of the turkey buzzards are back from their vacation down south. Most are waiting until it’s warmer. This week, friends. This week. Soon it will be time to take the two black swallowtail chrysalises out of the garage and welcome the first butterflies of the summer to fly free and help to hold off their Lepidoptiral decline.

We love our more-than-human* neighbors. Can you tell?

*The phrase “more than human” is borrowed from Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of BRAIDING SWEETGRASS and explained nicely here.