Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

About My Blog

I started this blog to quiet the voices in my head and heart that have been whispering and cajoling and sometimes yelling at me to write more.

This is a space where all the parts of me—mother, poet, wife, lover of beach stones and furry creatures and frequent toe-dipper in the river of song, Yoga practitioner, and teacher and she-who-cooks and she-who-makes-art and she-who-loves-silence, where all the parts of me can come out to play.

I started this blog to keep myself engaged in dialogue with my soul. If what I write interests you, educates you, moves you, …well, that’s a beautiful bonus.

Most Recent Blog Post

New Poem Published

I’m pleased that one of my pieces, “Honeymoon”  was just published in Last Stanza Poetry Journal. The journal is available in hardcover, softcover, and on Kindle.  Last Stanza is a beautiful journal, so if you’ve any interest in poetry for yourself or as a gift for someone special, please consider ordering a copy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D28R69VQ/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wY0A1oXJxC9H52BkfBJe2CtaMRH1CveI2fvY0_G7fn8.Mup6ucmLiTO910-CxspaHeIT7nqHv9qTyZSSK736WK8&qid=1713626398&sr=1-18

The poem:

 

Honeymoon

Across the Kenyan plains,
armies of fine golden dust
rose and swarmed around every living thing,
clung to skin and lips,
tongue and cornea,
the camera’s shuttered eye.

Who can say when a marriage begins or ends?
There are no dreams here,
she might have thought, no poems.
at night under the mosquito netting,
perhaps she watched his back rise and fall,
didn’t sleep but mourned the years ahead.

Three decades later, she excavated
a brown book of photos, met
a man and a woman, young and familiar,
hats angled away from the dust or each other.

Against a backdrop of zebras grazing,
with elephants walking in the distance,
the two squinted straight into the lens,
the haze already coming between them.

 

–Melinda Coppola

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read More Blog Posts

My Bread and Butter

Hello, dear blog. Hello, faithful tribe of readers. My neglect this past month stems not from writers block, but from posting block. Yes, it’s a thing, one which might even merit capitalization. Posting Block. I have spent mornings and nights in awe of the earth’s revolutions, the comings and goings

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Imagine the Harvest

Mercy What if we had drills, not just for disasters, fires and hurricanes, not just for active school shooters and any possible terrorisms both foreign and domestic, what if we had rigorous training in kindnesses: how to recognize them incoming, start a volley with the perpetrators. Imagine preparations for frequent

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My Daughter, the Foodie

Bink loves food. In fact, her relationship with it goes far beyond what tastes good and satisfies her hunger. She loves looking at cookbooks, finding recipes on the computer, and watching cooking shows. The painting subject she selects for her weekly art class is often something edible. The paintings on

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Turn, turn, turn, turn

OCTOBER October is like an unplanned drive, the roads back country and meandering, the other cars occasional, a determined deer or quicksilver squirrel the biggest hazards, and then just like that the road widens, and thickens, a harsh unnatural line slicing the middle, asphalt and buildings erupting like an acne

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In Plain Sight

Deus Occultatum Love sparks and cells cluster, forming flowers and rainstorms, people and evergreens, calling bees and grasshoppers to song, squirrels and deer, to dance. Love lifts the paintbrush to the canvas, parts the lips of the singer, fills the page with poem. Love is present everywhere; not just at

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WALKING

At twelve, thirteen, fourteen months, when most children begin to walk, or make a show of pulling their soft wobbly bodies to stand, you were content to sit and rub the carpet, watch the fibers grow fuzz beneath hands you didn’t seem to know belonged to you. A plump child

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Kind or Write?

I’ve been finding it challenging to encapsulate life with my daughter, Bink, lately. Hard to shape words for the page and even for casual conversation with friends, many of whom have their own experiences with parenting and/or caring for people they love who have special needs. It’s not for lack

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Temporal Tryst

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero, meaning “seize the day while trusting as little as possible on what tomorrow might bring”. Tomorrow In a daytime dream, the kind of interlude I once slipped into and out of as easily as frog to pond, and as shiny, with the slick lubricant

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Perhaps his name is Three Dollar Bill

The Emissary To the man on Pleasant Street You pace the same stretch of sidewalk every morning, purposefully, in one direction, then turning abruptly to traverse the same piece of asphalt back to an invisible starting point, ovalling this way over and over, rain or shine, in every season. Your

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