It Goes Like This
You smile down on me from a slightly precarious perch on the shelf above my messy desk. It’s my favorite photo of you—young and exuberantly happy, arms flung wide, dressed in colorful layers that reflect your signature style. I’d never seen this picture until your Memorial Service, but I loved it immediately. My second favorite […]
A 2022 Story, Part 6
And why, you might be asking, is she still working on a 2022 story? We are, after all, a few sturdy strides into 2023 spring. The answer is in the story itself. If you’ve been reading these discontinuous pieces, thank you! A 2022 Story You can read part 5 here: https://www.melindacoppola.com/a-2022-story-part-5/ Part 6 […]
A 2022 Story, Part 5
A 2022 Story You can read part four here: htts://www.melindacoppola.com/a-2022-story-part-4/ Part 5 Little Stream wasn’t sure Lily Pond had heard her question, so she asked again. “Wee Lily Pond, do you think there is a way out of this raging river? I really miss my quiet life.” Wee Lily Pond was silent for […]
A 2022 Story, Part 3
A 2022 Story Part 3* Nudge, nudge. Tap, tap. There it was again! A pattern, far from random. Little Stream was weary from the effort of holding herself together for an unknown number of suns and moons. Could she summon the energy to speak again? Try. I’ll try, she thought. Her voice rose again, but […]
A 2022 Story, Part 2
Little Stream Part 2* Little Stream could feel herself being pushed and pulled and hurried along in Big River’s watery trajectory. For the first time in her flowing life she lost track of the passage of days. Whole moons or suns got lost when she was tugged under a strong current or squeezed perilously against […]
A 2022 Story
There was a little stream—more of a rivulet, really—that dribbled and dripped and murmured along through a swath of untamed land. Many moons and suns cast their light upon her waters as she found her way around boulders and hills and the wide trunks of venerable trees. She was free of any precepts that […]
The Shift
art: Moon Goddess by Melinda Coppola, done in watercolor. On my best days I do dwell in gratitude and I experience most everything as a blessing. My poem, “The Shift”, attempts to give voice to that. The poem, which you can read below, has been published in Writing in a Woman’s Voice Poetry Journal. […]
Why Poetry Matters
I’m so pleased to share that my poem “Nobody” was published in Thimble Literary Journal today. You can read it by clicking on this link: https://www.thimblelitmag.com/2022/08/09/nobody/ My writing process is anything but logical. Sometimes it feels as if the poems begin as embryos planted in the unseen folds of my heart. Some grow in predicable […]
BE EVER SO KIND
In my nearly 30 year journey parenting my child with special needs, I’ve had much time to reflect on the juxtaposition between How I Thought Things Would Go and How Things Have Gone. How Things Are. I revisit memories of child-me, teen-me, very-young-adult me, and wonder—what if she knew how things would unfold? What might […]
The Visitor
In the dark, a baby fox hoists her short legs one by trembling one up the steep stairs, tripping the sensor light as she reaches the back deck in a sharp-eyed heap of gray brown fur. She toddles, adorably unsteady, across the width of composite boards, circles metal table and chairs, small nose searching […]