An Amazing Holiday Swap gift

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Karen Edminsten HERE. Thank you Karen, for hosting! Drop by to what she is sharing this week.

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It is fun to get a mystery gift in the mail! So much fun, it really should happen more often! When I received my holiday swap gift from Linda Mitchell, I was busy and had forgotten, I think, that Christmas would be here soon. I’d forgotten swap time was near.

I puzzled over this bulging envelop that appeared in my mailbox for a moment before I opened it. What could this be?

Inside I found a so called “Junk journal” with all sorts of treasures spilling out from it, which made it hardly junk.

I found a package of cut out words to be used as “poem seeds,” various collage pictures, such as stars made of paper,

and, of course, poetry.

This acrostic poem by Linda came with it:

And another wonderful poem was also inside, entitled “Today’s Poem Offers”:

TODAY'S POEM OFFERS

A bumper crop of stars
fresh from the fields
of Falling Star Farms

Stars heaped up high
sparkly with dew
fresh-picked by me
ready for you

Fill a bag, fill a basket
your pockets too
with all these good wishes
my star harvest holds for you

by Linda Mitchell, 2022

My new little journal, put me in the holiday mood, so I wrote this in response:

CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

comes from the heart,
arrives in December-
a surprise when it starts.

You think you aren't ready
the Grinch has your ear,
but when it takes hold
it can light a new year.

© Janice Scully 2022 









Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas! And may the holiday spirit last well into the New Year.

10 thoughts on “An Amazing Holiday Swap gift”

  1. How lovely, what treasures and wonderful poems, I love this line of Linda’s
    “Kaput, stick-a-fork-in-it done!”
    And sweet response poem from you Janice, thanks for sharing all!

  2. Janice, I love your poem swap. It is an exchange of thoughts and artwork from the heart. What better way to correspond with each other than in poetic goodness. I hope you are enjoying your Syracuse weather. We only caught a slice of the storm with frost one day and a day of constant rain and dampness.

  3. Lucky you, to be the recipient of one of Linda’s amazing “Junk Journals.” (They are so NOT junk!!) Have fun “loading it up with poems/making it new!”

  4. How cool! Sorry I missed this last week. Linda is a wonderful artist.

    Your post today reminded me of this poem :

    When You Go Anywhere
    by William Stafford

    This passport your face (not you
    officially, your picture, but the face
    used to make the passport) offers
    everyone its witness: “This is me.”
    It feels like only a picture, a passport
    forced upon you. Somewhere this oval,
    sudden and lasting, appeared. It happened
    that you were behind it, like it or not.
    You present it-your passport, your face —
    wherever you go. It says, “A little country,”
    it says “Allow this observer
    quiet passage,” it says, “Ordinary,” it says,
    “Please.”

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