I'll go and look, but ... I don't think so. And I haven't posted since the first Friday of November, and I haven't really written a n y t h i n g since Dec. 3, and (all join in) THAT'S OKAY. But it is odd that all of this has happened without intent, giving me a strong feeling of flakiness. (I once wrote a poem about the horror of being a flaky person, which came out like this,* so some part of me knows better.)
The thing is, while all of you were busily linking your Poetry Friday post with our hostess with the mostess Catherine, I WAS in fact thinking my first OLW thoughts in years, looking for the word that will hold me during this transitional time as Fiona and I gear up to start, in late August, spending 9 months of every year in England, returning each summer to Silver Spring. More on the word later.
First up is the Inklings challenge, set by said hostess Catherine, and based on a little poem by further Inkling Mary Lee (who also rounded us all up and has provided the list of hosts and code to feed the HTML dragons--thank you, Mary Lee, for helping us run). We are to write a little poem that begins “This is January” or “January.” I especially enjoyed the first line of her follow-up to the poem she posted on December 12: "This is December, as much or more than ..."
So...
This is January
This is January, as much or more than
cleaning up the confetti, putting away the decorations,
assessing the year gone by, prognosticating the year to come:
the pleasurable stillness of waking, for once,
as the low, slow sun is already slatting the wall;
of taking up a book instead of a handful of screed and screen;
of scrambled eggs in bed and a moderate walk in the wind.
May nothing trying cross my door, on this first of January at least.draft (c) HM 2026
And now, my word for 2026: l o n g a n i m i t y
"Longanimity is a word with a long history. It came to English in the 15th century from the Late Latin adjective longanimis, meaning "patient" or "long-suffering." Longanimis, in turn, derives from the Latin combination of longus ("long") and animus ("soul"). Longus is related to English's long and is itself an ancestor to several other English words, including longevity ("long life"), elongate ("to make longer"), and prolong ("to lengthen in time"). Now used somewhat infrequently in English, longanimity stresses the character of one who, like the figure of Job in the Bible, endures prolonged suffering with extreme patience."
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche
*Goddess Lesson #1
Let’s fantasize,
which is not the same thing as plan.
Plan means picture it through,
time it out, write it down,
commit. And you know what that means:
follow through. Get it done.
Flaking is not an option.
Being flaky is the worst possible thing:
it suggests that you are
not in control
of the situation. It suggests that
you are living in some fantasy
where the plan is not pictured,
not timed, not written down, where
things just happen of their own accord,
one thing leading to another in
some kind of natural, easy flow that
does not require your constant efforting
and which results in all kinds of
serendipity,
moments where you see as you
had not seen before, things are created,
colors sprout wings and name themselves
after the goddesses of every civilization;
they swarm around you, lifting you,
carrying you so lightly that neither are you
burdened nor are you a burden–
Instead you are a beautiful
luminescent flake
of snow, of buttery pastry, of ash or
of skin that has done its duty of its own
accord and floats, drifting on the natural,
easy breath of a fantastic
winged color goddess
© HM 2021, 2025
