writing

The Progressive Poem Lands! April 2025

Pamela Ross writing , ,


Overture:
Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. The baton is poised in the air. The orchestra waits for the signal to begin. Listen to the symphony of sounds. You are about to feel the power of poetry seep into your soul. I believe in the magic of words.

Thank you to all the inspired wordsmiths before me. It has been a joy watching this Garden of Reading grow.
Your collective images led to my last line in this progressive poem below.
Light the candles. Let our words take flight.
-Pamela Ross


Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood
dappling daffodils with flair

Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
as hummingbirds thrum
in the blossoming Sweetgum

Sing as you set up the easels
dabble in the paints
echo the colors of lilac and phlox
commune without constraints

Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs
rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings
feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end
remember long-ago springs

Bask in a royal spring meadow
romp like a golden-doodle pup!
startle the sleeping grasshoppers
delight in each flowering shrub…

Drinking in orange-blossom twilight
relax to the rhythm of stars dotting sky
as a passing Whip-poor-will gulps bugs
We follow a moonlit path that calls us

Grab your dripping brushes!
Our celestial canvas awaits
There we swirl, red, white, and blue
Behold what magic our montage creates!


The Progressive Poem was begun by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem and is now organized by Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  It is a collaborative poem with one new line written each day, with a different author adding each new line.  At the end of April, we’ll have a completed poem.  No one knows what path it will take! 

Poet Linda Baie gave us concrete words of “red, white, and blue” to breathe life into the canopy of art we have painted. And like a true poet, she reminds us writers’ words “swirl.” That is so much more tangible than merely brushing the colors onto that heavenly canvas! You can feel those colors flying into the air!

And now… This progressive poem swirls to the next poet:

Swirrrrrrrrl! Swissssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh!
Passing the word palette on to Diane Davis!
———————————————
Please take the time to vist all the poets contributing to this progressive poem at the provided links below:

April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose’s Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita at TanitasDavis.com
April 22 Patricia Franz 
April 23 Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors




Text in the City

Pamela Ross writing

A more recent, recurring dream of late: desperately needing to text someone on my phone but I forget how to use the keypad and forget how to use letters to type. Could this nightmare exist even twenty years ago? When did texting become a thing? I can’t remember. How did we find our destinations without a navigation app? Where did we share minute or trivial moments of our day? Is this life in the fast lane or a slow walk into the domination of dependence on artificial intelligence?

A Perfect Storm

Pamela Ross writing

Chanukah. Christmas. Time together. Time to do nothing. Gifts to share. Sharing the light. Rekindling hope. Remembering the loves we lost. Praying for more love to find its way home. Waving farewell to tears, welcoming dreams. Wishing on the stars that surely shine for us.

Low Battery

Pamela Ross writing 
The answer is sleep
The fear, status quo 
Emotions embedded
Too trapped to let go
Anxiety’s high
sinking flesh into bone
Turn down the volume 
and leave me alone

2 percent. 
Whewsh.
Just made it.
Beat the clock.
Just typing silly words strung together to prove even a misanthrope can write IN A MOOD from hell.

The Blue Light Special

Pamela Ross writing

Purity is transient. Moments later a car or two did figure eights on the street and destroyed the sacred blank page.

It’s like piercing the veil of a manuscript submission. So much hope, so much anticipation. Letting it go out to the universe invites wheelies and tracks and tire marks. The snow white serenity has been poisoned by indiscriminate bites into the apple.

Some day, my Prince will come. Or Princess. Right now, this Lady in Waiting status is a royal dream deferred.

Take a Load off Dani

Pamela Ross writing

My new dog just howled in her sleep, like a coyote wailing at the moon. I have never heard a dog talk or cry in her sleep before. Frightening moment. If she’s hurting, I’m hurting.

I hope she didn’t catch the bad dreams genes from me.

I hope she’s happy here. I love her like a mom.

Scratch that. I am her mom now. I hope her biological mom is not howling. I’d miss her too if she weren’t here with me.