It was the best of summer times – with plentiful potatoes and just the right sized zucchini, it was the worst of summer times – with chipmunks stealing succulent blueberries and cucumbers that overwhelmed. Almost making me regret planting this last garden on First Street all the while exploring options for next summer’s raised beds on Solstice Place. While carrots were not part of my planting plan, Leah Naomi Green’s poem is fitting for this month’s Gathering of Poetry.
Carrot
Take all summer, your ember
from the sun, its walking meditation.
Store it in small vaults of light to keep the rest of us
when winter seals around each day.
We'll flicker to the table.
We'll gather to your orange flame.
Please excuse my blatant plagiarism of the hallowed Dickens Tale and for being a tad bit late in joining Bonnie and Kat for this Gathering of Poetry.
I offer a poetic homage for this month’s third Thursday entitled June, although I feel it is more aptly named Summer. (But who am I to challenge John Updike’s wizardry of words?)
As a child of the 50s, Updike captures the essence of my long-ago summer days. Mornings that began with my name sing-songed at the backdoor screen calling me out to play; intense kickball games in the cinder alley with the bases unevenly spaced – the corner of the Davis garage, the edge of the Bush’s stone wall, and the large trunk of their oak tree; afternoons spent biking or skating round and round the block each rotation made more challenging as we fixed metal clamp on roller skates to our scuffed white summer tennis shoes; and then the languid evenings of hide and seek or firefly hunting as we counted our treasure trove of lighting bugs captured in empty Mason jars.
From July 2007 through August 2011, I stepped back into that magical time as we hosted Summer Camp for our nephew. Most often these carefree days, filled with fishing and crafts, reading and games, took place at my parents’ cabin on Lac Courte Oreilles in northern Wisconsin. There was one summer when hospice home care made that trip impossible and we shifted our play days to Rochester where evening walks replaced boating excursions but with no less fun in the “live-long light.”
June
The sun is rich, And gladly pays In golden hours, Silver days,
And long green weeks That never end. School’s out. The time Is ours to spend.
The playground calls, The ice-cream man, And, after supper, Kick-the-can.
The live-long light Is like a dream, And freckles come Like flies to cream.
As someone who loves to “play in the dirt” and is anxiously awaiting the thawing of my raised beds, I appreciate the imagery and reminders offered by Elizabeth Alexander – poet, musician, composer, and fellow Minnesotan. Her advice to “trust the seeds” goes beyond just the feel of the garden trowel in my hand and extends to good advice for life in these scary, turbulent times.
Trust the Seeds
Trust the seeds, although they lie in darkness, Stirring beyond your watchful eye. Though they may not flower as you dreamed they would, When the planting’s over you must trust the seeds.
Some soon bloom to fill your heart with wonder, Some only after you are gone, You must give them freedom to grow as they should. Give them room to spread their roots, and trust the seeds.
In your heart, you know that some may wither, All you can do is hope and pray. Some will rise up grander than you dreamed they could. There is joy in planting if you trust the seeds.
Celebrate your library during National Library Week and every week. Library services enhance your life and the life in your community whether by sparking creativity, offering a safe community hub, empowering job seekers, protecting the right to read, connecting people with technology, or nurturing young minds while continuing to provide a book collection for all ages. Join others under this year’s theme, Drawn to the Library and celebrate.
Special days and focus:
Monday, April 7 – Right to Read Day
Tuesday, April 8 – National Library Workers Day
Wednesday, April 9 – National Library Outreach Day
Thursday, April 10 – National Take Action for Libraries Day, a day to rally support for libraries.
With the firehose of bad decisions spewing forth from this White House, I vacillate between trying to stay informed and wanting to ignore the mistaken path this country blithely follows. As a former children’s librarian, I am dismayed by the administration’s recent order to remove certain picture books from U.S. military schools. In an unstable world with bombs hitting targets in Gaza and Ukraine and civil wars in Sudan and Myanmar, I would think the Department of Defense would have more relevant tasks to undertake than pulling from its school library shelves Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore and No Truth Without Ruth by Kathleen Krull.
Here is a brief synopsis in case you are not familiar with these two picture books.
No Truth Without Ruth – An age-appropriate biography of the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from a small girl who chipped a tooth while twirling a baton to Supreme Court Justice making major decisions while donned in a black robe and her signatory lace collar.
Freckleface Strawberry – Tired of being teased because of her looks, the story tells of a young girl’s antics to hide her face before accepting her freckles.
While I may be eight years into retirement, my long-held belief in intellectual freedom as basic tenet of librarianship still rings true. As defined by the American Library Association: “Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.”
I encourage you to read these titles for yourself and determine whether these books are, as described by the administration, “radical indoctrination.” I think not but take a look.
Writer Danielle Coffyn offers a comedic (but true) view of the Adam and Eve Genesis story in her new poetry collection being released on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2025. I hope you enjoy If Adam Picked the Apple from Coffyn’s anthology by the same title for this Gathering of Poetry on January’s third Thursday.
If Adam Picked the Apple
There would be a parade, a celebration, a holiday to commemorate the day he sought enlightenment. We would not speak of temptation by the devil, rather, we would laud Adam’s curiosity, his desire for adventure and knowing. We would feast on apple-inspired fare: tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies. There would be plays and songs reenacting his courage.
But it was Eve who grew bored, weary of her captivity in Eden. And a woman’s desire for freedom is rarely a cause for celebration.
And thanks to Bonnie and Kat for bringing Gathering of Poetry into a new year.
Mid-December and we have only a light dusting of snow, nothing like the hip-high drifts of my childhood. For this third Thursday Gathering of Poetry, I will celebrate a winter trio: snow (not yet fallen), winter solstice, and Nikki Giovanni’s Winter Poem.
once a snowflake fell on my brow and i loved it so much and i kissed it and it was happy and called its cousins and brothers and a web of snow engulfed me then i reached to love them all and i squeezed them and they became a spring rain and i stood perfectly still and was a flower
NASA technical description: An analemma is a composite image taken from the same spot at the same time over the course of a year. The tilt of the Earth axis and the ellipticity of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun create the analemma’s figure-8 shape. At the solstices, the Sun will appear at the top or bottom of an analemma. The featured image was taken near the December solstice 2022 at the Callanish Stones, near the village of Callanish in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, UK. Source: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
With the conclusion of an emotional campaign season and election results that presented a clear dichotomy between progressive inclusion and conservative isolationism, this poem written on November 6 by Steve Garnaas-Holmes served as balm for my wounded spirit. For those still reeling and wondering what the future holds, I hope you, too, find comfort in these words for the third Thursday Gathering of Poetry.
Take seriously your grief. It is love, stripped bare. Let it flow through you.
Trust that you are held. We all are held by the Beloved, the Broken-Hearted One, the One who Suffers most Deeply.
Know you are not alone. Millions bear your sorrow. Ancestors and even unborn generations walk with you gratefully.
Seek others who are tenderhearted. Receive all the grace you can. In the flesh is best, but even in spirit, know we are here.
Trust the Goodness. God has not given up on us. Through every disaster grace remains. Refuse to despair.
Choose courage over selfishness, trust over fear, love over anger. You do not know the end of grace.
There is much you cannot change, but bring healing where you can. We are not promised to be given light, but to shine with light.
Don’t become an enemy of the world and its brokenness. Stay tender. Become a source of comfort and joy for others. Let this purpose bear you through the darkness and you yourself will become light.
Take courage; trust grace; stay connected; practice love.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes is a retired Methodist Minister living in Montana who shares daily reflections at Unfolding Light. His weekday thoughts are “rooted in a contemplative, Creation-centered spirituality … which invites readers into a spirit of presence, compassion, justice and delight.” His blog is Unfolding Light, which is also the title of several volumes of poetry.
Every time I hear Amada Gorman read her poetry I shiver with inspiration. To be so young and yet so eloquent. This past summer in Chicago, during the Democratic National Convention, she walked proudly unto the stage and laid this challenge before each of us:
This Sacred Scene
We gather at this hollowed place because we believe in the American dream.
We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the Earth, and if our earth shall perish from this country.
It falls to us to ensure that we do not fall for a people that cannot stand together, cannot stand at all.
We are one family, regardless of religion, class or color. For what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty, but our love for one another.
This is loud in our country’s call, because while we all love freedom, it is love that frees us all.
Empathy emancipates, making us greater than hate or vanity. That is the American promise, powerful and pure. Divided, we cannot endure but united, we can endeavor to humanize our democracy and endear democracy to humanity.
And make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote, but tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship, but by the audacity of our hope, by the vitality of our vote.
Only now, approaching this rare air, are we aware that perhaps the American Dream is no dream at all, but instead a dare to dream together.
Like a million roots tethered, branching up humbly, making one tree, this is our country. From many, one; from battles won; our freedoms sung; our kingdom come has just begun.
We redeem this sacred scene. Ready for our journey. From it together, we must birth this early republic and achieve an unearthly summit. Let us not just believe in the American dream. Let us be worthy of it.
Knit+ Librarian 