Library Matters

First Friday Poetry: February 6, 2026

It's the first Friday of the month. This means it's time for a poem.

I'm joining Beverly A Baird & Linda Schueler in another year long poetry practice. On the first Friday of each month we, and anyone else who joins, writes a poem and shares it.

This year, Bev and Linda have organized themes for each month. This month's theme is love and friendship.

I've spent the last month pondering what love and friendship mean to me. Eventually I started All About Love by Belle Hooks. I've lost track of how many times I've read this book, but each time I take something profound from it.

Early in January, Ailsa, one of my closest friends, died after a long illness. Decades ago she introduced me to The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. When I read Suzanne Simard's Finding the Mother Tree, she was unable to read it with me. This poem is for her.

I suspect this is really two poems, or maybe it's the start of a small series.

Ecology

forest flora
are connected through
an underground network
of minuscule filaments

uniting all species
into in a community

warning of danger,
nurturing as needed,

embracing one another
in fragile arms
of belonging

lately i’ve been thinking
that we too
are connected
in a similar way,
through invisible

filaments of love

a love stretching
across space and time
nurturing us in a collective

of hearts, minds, and souls,

rejoicing that
each one of us exists
to shine our unique light
into the darkness

and maybe,
when people
march in streets,
blow whistles of warning,
bring food and medicine

to those trapped in houses,
maybe, we are seeing

how we become
the instruments
of this invisible network

today
i’m wondering
if perhaps trees grieve
when one of them falls
just like i do
now that you are gone

The theme for March is Spring has Sprung.

First Friday Poetry: January 2, 2026

I'm joining Beverly A Baird & Linda Schueler again in another year long poetry practice. On the first Friday of each month we, and anyone else who joins, writes a poem and shares it.

This year, Bev and Linda have organized themes for each month. This month's theme is New Beginnings.

In the last month I've carried those words in my pocket. I've mulled them over and chewed on their meaning. it wasn't until I started to write that I began to make sense out of them.

The Beauty Way that I've referenced in my poem is both a Navajo philosophy and a traditional prayer. This musical version was created by composer/conductor Gregg Smith. I learned the song in a choir ages ago. We might not have sounded as good as this, but singing it with others was/is a glorious experience.

beginning anew

these days,

in the big picture of my life,

it’s more about endings,

than beginnings.

it’s about looking at the finish line,

at what i’ve left undone,

at how we, as a society, have failed

future generations

i watch my grandchildren

and worry about

the mess we're leaving them

it’s easy to let despair creep in

indeed, it’s hard to stave it off

but this morning,

the sun rose on a skiff of fresh snow,

cracks in the clouds revealed

a crazy quilt of blue and white sky

and i remembered

that i can choose

to walk in beauty

so i signed up to volunteer

for the candidate of my choice

exhorting myself

to put in the work

even if we don't get the changes we need

even if we end up losing

the big game

i can still

choose anew to love

choose anew to hope

choose anew to live and walk the beauty way

Next month's theme is Love and Friendship. Why don't you join us?

First Friday Poetry: November 7, 2025

I'm joining Beverly A Baird & Linda Schueler again in a year long poetry practice. On the first Friday of each month we, and anyone else who joins, writes a poem and shares it. This year the focus is on using poems to inspire us.

In September and October I was gallivanting across the country with two cousins. I started poems, but never found the energy and/or concentration to complete any of them, so I took a break from participating. I'm happy to be back today.

From Linda's blog post:

"This month we are taking inspiration from the Maya Stein poem that is linked to this blog post.
The structure is based on this pattern:
“I could be …”
“But I’m here.”
“I want…”
“They want…”

I wrote this last weekend when I was in Vancouver visiting with a friend.

I could be somewhere warm. I could be hanging out with my sister in San Jose Del Cabo, lazing on hot sandy beaches and drinking margaritas in a cantina. I could be in my sewing room working on one of the unfinished projects that I’ve started and can’t find time or creativity to finish. I could be hanging out with my grandkids: hiking, playing games, working on crafts. But I’m here, spending time with a best friend in the care home where she now lives. I want to have a conversation, but she is almost incapable of speech. I tell her how much she means to me. I tell her I love her. I want to find the words to say the final goodbye, but they won’t come. They want to choke me. They want more time. She says my name. I cry. She cries. It will have to do.

First Friday Poetry August 2025

This month we are writing about “Where We Belong” based on this poem.

A while ago I purchased Finger Exercises for Poets by Dorianne Laux. The first chapter asks us to really look at a thing: to carry it around with you in your pocket and pay close attention to it. This past month, I have carried the word 'belonging' around with me like this. I've savoured the feel, sound, and taste of it in my mouth and memories.

Then last week, Tim Minchin, an Australian singer songwriter released Time Machine, his first album in ages. Not Perfect, a profound song about belonging, is on it.

Growing up, I never felt like I belonged. Living in a small town with a father who used a wheelchair and stayed home, while my mother went out to work, played a huge part in this. We were different.

Here's my poem. I've stolen those end lines from Tim.

where i belong

i belong

in my home town:

it wasn’t always like this

half a century or so ago

when i left

it was:

too small

too limited

too homophobic

too misogynist

too racist

too redneck

in these intervening years

i’ve changed

it’s changed

i might be flawed,

it might be flawed,

the thing is,

this landscape,

it's imprinted on my heart:

ghosts of my ancestors

haunt these streets and hills

weaving me into the tapestry

of this place and this community

half a century later

i've finally figured it out:

this town,

it's not perfect,

but it's mine

First Friday Poetry July 2025

This month we are doing either “Where I Live” or “Where I Come From” poems. I wrote a Where I'm from poem in January of this year.

where i live
summers are hot
precipitation is rare
the round brown hills of my youth

are a constant backdrop
except when spring rain and snowmelt
inspire bunch grass and wildflowers
to cavort across their slopes

where i live
in the valley,
it’s deceptively lush and green

fruit stands line the highway

displaying baskets of

berries, cherries and apricots

these ground crops, fruit trees, and vineyards
are sustained by
a concrete irrigation canal
and straightened out river

where I live

wineries abound

but the expansion of agriculture

into the steppes

has meant that the burrowing owls

who once populated these landscapes

have now been extirpated

where i live
our cedar hedge is home to
quail, sparrows, robins,
and birds i don’t know the names of
i spend mornings and evenings
in the backyard garden
currently, i’m harvesting raspberries
but it seems like what i mostly do
these days
where i live,
is weed

First Friday Poetry June 2025

"This month we will be writing about the influences in our life. Poet James Crew has posted the poem “I’d Rather Be Influenced” by Patrick Ramsay, and that’s the poem we will take inspiration from in June."

May was a hard month.

Each May, for the last 39 years, I've headed off for a long weekend with a diverse group of women friends. The Saturday before I left, I called my cousin Laura, the woman through whom the rest of us met, to sort out a few details as to who was coming, where we were all sleeping, and what to remember. The next morning I got a message that she had died in her sleep. After a lot of phone calls, four of us decided we needed to go to our cabin on the beach even if she wouldn't be there.

Ever since I got that terrible news, I been thinking about how much she, and being part of this group of friends, have influenced me. I've also been thinking that I need to be more like Laura: a down to earth woman of compassion, love, and laughter. She was the kind of person you felt safe around. She brought out the best in those of us who knew her. She was the closest thing to a big sister I ever had. My heart aches with missing her.

I started this poem while I was away, and then worked on it after returning home, Then I forgot all about it. I've been working like crazy in the garden and only realized it was Friday when I received notification of Linda's blog post!

Todays poem is dedicated to my beautiful cousin who leaves a huge hole in many hearts.

I’d Rather Be Influenced by Laura

to giggle more
letting myself be me
finding comfort
in my aging body
laughing uproariously

in the face of what’s to come

I’d rather be influenced
by inclusivity
celebrating difference
and finding common ground
not only with my fellow homo sapiens
but also with
with each and every being on this planet

to find holiness in
rocks and dirt,
birds, flowers, marmots, trees,
cacti, spiders,
even the invasive mallow,
whose roots I rip out with distressing regularity

I’d rather be influenced

to take time to listen to morning warblers
and evening frog song
to cherish the rhythm of crickets

and live each moment in joy

First Friday Poetry May 2025

This month we are on our own to choose our own mentor text poem.

I recently read an article about Janis Ian's first song, written and recorded in 1965 when she was only 14. I had never heard of Society's Child until then. The song of hers that resonated most with me is At Seventeen. I'm using it for my inspiration this month.

When I was in grade ten, I went off to a Catholic Youth Conference one weekend, and returned home with Hepatitis A. While at home, too sick and exhausted to read, I listened to CBC radio's Cross Country Checkup with Peter Gzowsky. He was interviewing national and international feminists. It was a revelation for me. I experienced a paradigm shift in my world view and returned to my small town high school a very different person than the one I was before.

At Seventeen

I learned the truth at seventeen
That boys should never fill girls dreams
That equal rights and equal pay
Would prove to be the only way
To control our bodies and our minds
According to our own designs
It isn’t what it seems
At seventeen

My mother’s life made clear to me
that a husband and a family
Was no guarantee
of equanimity
that education was the key
to choice and opportunity
it was clear to me

at seventeen

Those of us who dared to venture
Into a new kind of future
Someday, if we found love true
there never would be payment due
for independent girls like me and you

Life's different than it seems

At seventeen

Decades have past and much has changed
We’ve lost much that we once gained.
I ache for girls still in their teens
And hope that boys don’t fill their dreams
It isn’t all it seems
At seventeen

Here's Janice Ian singing her Grammy award winning song.