I left town for four days. When I returned home, my garden had grown so much, I hardly recognized her. Is this how a mother feels? You turn your back on your baby for one moment and miss a milestone?

My prickly poppy has spread its limbs, my rosemary has deepened in color, and my Gregg’s mistflower has begun to bloom. My frostweed is almost as tall as I am now (only a slight exaggeration), and my Ohio spiderwort is EVERYWHERE, so audacious I imagine it might say its first words any day now. I greeted each of my precious plants, listened to their stories, and gave them a drink of water. Then I introduced them to their newest sibling, a four-nerve daisy gifted to me in Comfort, Texas, where I just attended a magical poetry retreat.

April is one of my favorite months, and this year it did not disappoint. I celebrated National Poetry Month by reading a poem and writing a poem each day. I celebrated Earth Day by picking up litter on one of my favorite local trails. I saw my first lightning bug of the season and had the pleasure of watching a gray fox family playing in my backyard. I worked in my garden, watched rainstorms from my porch, and hung out with old friends I haven’t seen in too long. Then I ended the month by spending three days with an incredible group of poets at a workshop in Comfort led by Naomi Shihab Nye, my favorite poet and an all-around lovely human being. I left with a journal full of notes, several poem drafts, lots of new friends, and the hope that the feeling of comfort we all experienced there will stay with us a long time.

April wasn’t all flowers and baby foxes. There were stressful moments and anxious days, inconveniences and disappointments mixed in. But when I look back on the past month, it’s the good things that shine through. Those are the ones I’ll carry with me into May.

Here’s hoping you had some magical moments in April, too, or that you find some soon.

Peace and Poetry,

Carie

I can never let National Poetry Month pass by without spending some time playing with found poetry. One of my favorite types is the book title found poem. I made the following one about my garden.

A thousand mornings

This same sky

You are here

In a kingdom of birds

Wingbeats:

The comfort of crows

Fresh water for flowers,

A medicine for melancholy

Honeybee

Flutter and hum

As I walked out one evening

Firefly lullaby

Summer's edge

Too bright to see

Leaf and beak:

Grace notes

October shadows

Extending the shade

Early frost--

Hidden universe

Smallest leaf

Rebirth

This wild and precious life

Magic for troubled times

-Carie Juettner, April 2026



* * *

To see some of my past book title creations, visit my blog.

James Wade (pictured above in the WLT conference photo with me) is the author of Narrow the Road, a coming of age novel-- I can't help thinking of it as a Texas Odyssey of sorts-- set in the 1930s about a teenage boy on a quest to find his father and save his sick mother and their farm. I began listening to the audiobook on my drive back from Comfort to Richardson this week. Wade's poetic prose was good company as I weaved my way through the wildflowers and pastures of the Texas hill country. I'm about a third of the way through and am enjoying each new character and setting that's introduced.

This morning, I also started reading Grimoire Girl by Hilarie Burton Morgan, a book I picked up impulsively from the library a couple of weeks ago. I was forty pages in before I was able to tear myself away. In this memoir about the things we inherit and the things we pass on and the magic we infuse into our everyday routines and collections, Morgan shares her unique views on what a modern grimoire can include and provides advice for creating a personal spell book of your own. I keep wanting to underline in it, so I may have to purchase my own copy.