For a long while, every third Thursday evening when the poetry circle I belonged to met, I couldn’t make it. I had a board meeting that interferred with the circle’s timing.

Last night, for the first time in months, I made it.

There is something magical when a group of six women meet, even in a virtual room, to share — stories of life, their joys and struggles, their thoughts and feelings, their words and heart.

The creator of this circle is a gentle-hearted woman named Ali of the Flashlight Batteries blog. I met her online during the beginning days of COVID when she was first beginning to convene her writing circles. Her welcoming spirit and intuitive ways created a warm and inviting space to come, sit awhile, listen, write, share if desired, and to be present to the wonder of the muse expressing herself through each of her acolyte’s tender, and sometimes tentative, words.

I could only stay for the first hour of the circle last night. That hour fuelled my courage and energy repositories leading me to write a poem as a companion piece to one of the poems we read last night.

For those who would like to explore their creative expressions through poetry, or to simply gather in a warm and welcoming space where the invitation to create is so wide open you cannot but enter its field of possibility, do check out Ali’s online writing circles — or just her blog. She is always full of wisdom, delight and inspiration.

My two poems from last night – the first one is written to the prompt of Mary Oliver’s poem, Don’t Hesitate – the last line of which is “Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

The prompt for the second poem I’m sharing was the poem, A Note ~ by Wislawa Szymborska

The Many Ways to Walk Amongst the Trees
©2023 Louise Gallagher

Life has a way
of filling my thoughts
with the certaintude that there is
only one way
to walk amongst the trees
shadowed by their canopy
of leaves hiding the sky
with its infinite possibilities
to explore
the many ways to walk
forest trails,
forward
backward
slowly
fast
eyes open
eyes shut
skipping over pebbles
strewn like thoughts scattered
by life’s unexpected happenings
that arrive,
unbidden, 
unwelcome
in my calendar of days
full of all the things I have captured,
on the page made of trees
squandered to my need
to make order of my life
in the only way I know how
to ensure I take it
one step at a time.