5/27/26 – A Poem By Craig Arnold

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                       Bird-Understander

Of many reasons I love you here is one
the way you write me from the gate at the airport
so I can tell you everything will be alright
so you can tell me there is a bird
trapped in the terminal      all the people
ignoring it       because they do not know
what to do with it       except to leave it alone
until it scares itself to death
it makes you terribly terribly sad
You wish you could take the bird outside
and set it free or       (failing that)
call a bird-understander
to come help the bird
All you can do is notice the bird
and feel for the bird       and write
to tell me how language feels
impossibly useless
but you are wrong
You are a bird-understander
better than I could ever be
who make so many noises
and call them song
These are your own words
your way of noticing
and saying plainly
of not turning away
from hurt
you have offered them
to me       I am only
giving them back
if only I could show you
how very useless
they are not
Reflective writing prompt:
Write about what can’t be understood

4/22/26 Workshop – A Poem by Mary Oliver

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Buck Moon—From a Field Guide to Insects

Eight-eight thousand six-hundred
different species in North America. In the trees, the grasses
around us. Maybe more, maybe
several million on each acre of earth. This one
as well as any other. Where you are standing
at dusk. Where the moon
appears to be climbing the eastern sky. Where the wind
seems to be traveling through the trees, and the frogs
are content in their black ponds or else
why do they sing? Where you feel
a power that is not you but flows
into you like a river. Where you lie down and breathe
the sweet honey of the grass and count
the stars: where you fall asleep listening
to the simple chords repeated, repeated.
Where, resting, you feel
the perfection, the rising, the happiness
of their dark wings

Reflective writing prompt
Write about something that “bugs” you.

4.1.26 Workshop – Dog Poems by Scott Browning

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                  Scott Browning

The Protector
I am the protector
My human said so
I determine my vector
And away I go
Who is the threat?
A question I forever consider
Will they be identified by the Vet?
Are they attacking my litter?
The mail carrier tops the list
I’m not sure why
The smell of other dogs in the mist
Bundles of mail, no one will die
My job may not be well defined
I know I am here to protect
But I am inclined to be kind
So, my bark has an unintended effect.

Insipid Humans
Fluffy, the name they gave me.
I was known by my comrades as Atlantis,
but to these insipid humans
Fluffy, they call
and to this name, if I wish to eat,
I must respond
A warrior I
But now, dressed in a sweater
and Santa hat
I pretend that a tummy rub is sufficient
to dull the grief of battles no longer fought.

Reflective writing prompt
As a dog, a pet, or animal, write something to a human.

3/4/26 Workshop – A Poem by Sarah Gambito

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Charlottesville Curriculum
I am afraid of your transcendental death.
When people say think of a man. I think of a brown man.
Sometimes the earth grows khella because she can feel our suffering.
Yooooooing beneath Costco tikis.
When people say think of a man. I think of a white man.
I am meant to hold you in your oblique pain, your map-driven pain.
Yooooooing beneath Costco tikis.
I was drunk holding my teeth in like students.
I am meant to hold you in your oblique pain, your map-driven pain.
You die like an actor.
I was drunk holding my teeth in like students.
My body was a brown dog I shoved back into the water.
You die like an actor.
I beseeched but couldn’t stay out of the first person.
My body was a brown dog I shoved back into the water.
Hold me, hold me, hold me, holdmeholdmeholdme.
I beseeched but couldn’t stay out of the first person.
Where does it hurt, we say.
Hold me, hold me, hold me, holdmeholdmeholdme.
I am afraid of your transcendental death.
Reflective Writing Prompt
Write about a time you tried to hold someone else’s pain.