Toad's Winter Antiphon

The poetry community on Substack is a space where seasoned, published poets welcome total beginners, like me, with so much generosity. My grateful thanks to James Hart for the generous sharing of his calligraphy, which helped push me to finally get this poem out of my notebook.

And I was very thankful for MK Creel’s encouragement helping me feel braver about reading it live at a gathering of Substack poets on Zoom organized by Lisa Jensen and LeeAnn Pickrell. Over and over, one hand reaches out and helps another in a way I find so humbling. Just like circles on the pond, ever widening rings of creative friendships continue to form.

This particular poem revealed itself to me in a slow evolution with many different versions. Each of them a joy to work on. This is just the latest one, and I doubt it ever will be fully finished. That’s ok.

As James reminds us . . .

I’ll see you in a new microseason,

xo Ann