Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Okay, Tuesday...Offer Some Grace. Monday Was a Doozy, But I'm Still Standing. Thankful for Ann E. Burg's Poetry Prompt

It was a cool task. Take a moment or thought and write about it in free verse. Then, add a haiku at the end to summarize and bring the point full circle to its greatest meaning. I had a lot of ideas, but then I was thinking about Krystina, my Polish neighbor who passed a couple of years ago and I thought about our blueberry bushes that are just starting to turn green. I hate that she and I can't share our summer yield with one another any longer. I really enjoyed the prompt writer Ann E. Burg had us do as the 13th #VerseLove Challenge.

For the most part, however, Monday was meeting upon meeting upon meeting followed by an evening grad class. The problem was that as we entered our room, there were three faculty members with their students piling in with us. They were told they were assigned the space for their evening guest speaker and I was like, "Nope. We've been here since the beginning of the semester." This never goes well, as argumentation to move my class elsewhere ensued. Where are we supposed to go? We've been in the space since January?  I went downstairs to check in the Dean's Office (of course it was shut up for the day, but luckily caught an administrative assistant as she was leaving. She had no record as to why these colleagues would assume the space I'm teaching was theirs. Alas, that always makes for frantic quibbles. By the time I got back, they were all gone and found another locations, I guess. This is what happens when space on campus is over capacity. And people get testy. 

Anyways, the blueberry poem. 

Vaccinium Corymbosum 

b.r.crandall


She often bought pierogis, leaving the plate on the floor of my breezeway. Whenever I walked the dogs by her house they knew they’d get sandwich meat. - it’s why I’d always find them on her front porch when they escaped the yard. 


Najdrobniejszy akt życzliwości wart jest największej uwagi. Kahil Gibran can be translated into any language - kindness is meant to be universal. 


On birthdays, when her kids came to visit, I’d bring her orchids, hyacynths, and eventually blueberry bushes to celebrate her life. She’d plant them along the fence we shared so they could kvetch with one another, including my own.


between our two homes

bees pollinate white flowers

causing blueberries.


I remember the morning her husband fell. Pomocy! Potrzebuję pomocy! Mój mąż upadł. I ran over and helped him off the ground. He was lying in her daffodils. 


A few months later he passed. 


She followed soon after.   






Getting Spicy with #VerseLove26. I Went With Nutmet (It's the Constitutional State After All). But We are Upon a Weekend, So Let It All Simply Be

Okay, Friday was an on- and off-again day with meetings, programs, meetings, and a lunch with an ol' student. I think I accomplished wha...