Today is my birthday, so I wrote a poem. It’s still pretty rough, and it’s actually two poems since I’m still doing the sonnet-from-a-haiku thing. Anyway, here it is along with the photo I took that inspired it.
Misty morn in spring Sidewalk stretches steadily I’m caught in happy
Sidewalk Stroll on my birthday By Michelle Garren-Flye
Today, the day I turn fifty-something, I see the sidewalk stretch ahead, a true flower path on this day in spring, warmth after the winter we suffered.
I salute the sun, bathe in the breeze, meander about in midnight moonlight; happy to live for a moment at ease with nothing to mourn, no one to fight.
Grateful for all that gives my life spice because living too easy just makes you fat. For true happiness, you must pay a price and sometimes it will knock you down flat.
Today, I know I’ll follow my sidewalk to the end; I’ll round every corner, never hesitate at a bend.
Photo and poem copyright 2025 Michelle Garren-Flye
My mother, Geraldine “Gerry” Garren, 84, passed away two years ago on this day. I wrote this for her, but it was also inspired by others I know who are suffering. This month has been a cruel one for many.
I hope this will give someone hope, because I truly believe that if you love someone and they love you, death does not take that love. I don’t think it can.
This poem is my theory of what happens to that love…and why it makes your heart ache.
What Happens to the Love? By Michelle Garren-Flye
Losing you left all the edges: your love moved into my heart… god it hurts when it stretches.
Indelible, your love stresses; oh, can I bear this part? Losing you left me with edges.
Death can’t claim successes, so love moves in with art, causes aches as it stretches.
Accept the way it presses and tears your chest apart; losing someone leaves edges.
Patience, time progresses and lightens what once was hard. Just breathe as the heart stretches.
Grief is the way love compresses your love and mine as one in my heart. Yes, it hurts when it stretches, and sometimes I still feel the edges.
Photo and poem copyright 2025 Michelle Garren-Flye
I have been experimenting with haiku and sonnets. I have written sonnets based on haiku and haiku based on sonnets. I should probably make a note about which is which. I will eventually publish all of them (or all that are worthwhile, anyway), but of course, I can’t wait for that. Here’s my most recent attempt.
winter’s mossy wrap cannot hold back spring blossoms riotous reform
Spring Scheming
Winter’s moss won’t hold me back! No, in spring I’ll bloom anyway. When the night is less black and winds make new leaves sway.
Patchy growths won’t take me over. When the sun shines yellow and warm and bees buzz among the clover, our schemes begin to take form.
You see my buds emerge today and tomorrow they’ll only grow. Moss can’t hurt me; I won’t decay. Beauty is my power to bestow.
The world will soon be full of color; just wait, we’re staging a takeover.
Photo and poem copyright 2025 Michelle Garren-Flye
They’ve been predicting snow, but I didn’t really believe it might happen until I walked my dog this morning. I walked outside and the clamor of the birds in the trees greeted me. So I wrote a villanelle about it. It’s still kind of rough, but thought I would share it.
the day before it snowed by Michelle Garren-Flye
walking, the day before the snow the world hushed, except the birds singing songs of cold with gusto
the treetops housed their show and I stopped to hear their words sung the day before the snow
what wisdom do they know these creatures making records, singing songs of cold with gusto
Nature whispers pianissimo, Her voice lower than the birds, “‘tis the day before the snow”
the wind may breeze and blow but won’t cut their sound by thirds as they sing of cold with gusto
oh, hear the song of the sparrow for they are the wisest of the birds listen, the day before the snow as they sing songs of cold with gusto
Today is the winter solstice, aka the darkest day of the year. There are fewer minutes of daylight today than on any other day.
It’s my favorite day, not because I don’t like light but because I do. I love light, and if today is the shortest day, then we start getting longer days tomorrow. It’s like hitting rock bottom but knowing you will have the strength to climb back up.
That’s why I wrote my book Winter Solstice, which is now in print in my “Author’s Edition”. This is a day we don’t always appreciate or even note, but it’s worth remembering if there’s a down, there’s usually an up that follows.
I’m exploring a connection between haiku and sonnets again. I did it once before with a haiku by Matsuo Basho. I like the way that one turned out, and as I’m either at an impasse with my novel or at least a long hesitation, I thought I’d try to break out of it by writing a haiku and turning it into a sonnet.
It’s not the most cheerful of poems. In fact, as I wrote the sonnet, I began thinking about how we all try to hang onto our youth and how that can appear. I used to think I’d prefer to age gracefully, now I’m working out daily, trying things I’ve never tried before, dying my hair pink…it all feels right, but maybe it’s not?
Then again, if you never had a chance to bloom in spring, maybe you take the opportunity when you find it.
fall shadows don’t flatter your rosy vernal blossoms it’s too late for you
Out of Season By Michelle Garren-Flye
What are you doing here, little pink bloom? It’s obvious to all your time is long past and putting off death just creates gloom. Your beauty offends, you weren’t meant to last.
You weren’t meant for this kind of shadow when even the sunlight is just a tad too gold casting bare limbs in an unearthly glow as a wind shivers by, leaving you cold.
I’ll have to bury you in the dry, brown leaves. Remember how they looked in your youth? That’s when your beauty was sure to please! Now I’m afraid, it seems uncouth.
Stay buried please, accept what’s been done; for flurries and frigid winds, the time has come.
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
Winter Solstice was my second book, published in 2011 by Lyrical Press, now part of Kensington Press. It was a fun story to write and I was thrilled to have two books published by Lyrical Press, but Winter Solstice, unlike Secrets of the Lotus, was never published as a paperback. So I’ve never had it at my store, so it really feels new!
I was super hesitant to republish Winter Solstice because I actually got a lot of great feedback on the cover, lol. Everybody liked the bare-chested man on it, and the model (yes, he really exists) actually contacted me for information about my book way back (his name is Jason Aaron Baca and if you google him, you’ll find out he’s been on the covers of 500+ romance novels—look out Fabio!). He offered to post the cover on his web page, and if you want to see his other novel covers check it out here. Of course, the cover of Winter Solstice is long since crowded out by the others that have come since then, but I’m sure it’s still there somewhere.
Jason, if you’re still out there somewhere, I had to say goodbye to my old cover in order to republish my book, but still appreciate my little brush with celebrity. 🙂
My new cover probably won’t get that kind of attention, but I did design it myself. Thanks to Canva, I’ve gotten pretty handy at the cover design thing, and it saves money, which, as a bookstore owner and indie author I definitely appreciate!
Below, you’ll find the new cover and blurb for Winter Solstice: Author’s Edition. I hope you enjoy. I’ll have copies in my store next week!
Is it a one-night stand or a lifetime romance?
Becky Gray, newest public relations guru for Buncombe County Hospital in Asheville, N.C., does not do one-night stands. Until she meets sexy ER doc John Grant. He’s got a reputation as a womanizer, and Becky tries to stay away, but she finds herself inevitably drawn to him. It doesn’t help that her first assignment involves writing a blog about John and the hospital’s award-winning Emergency Department. For his part, John finds Becky unique combination of strength and vulnerability intriguing. When the two are thrown together in the crisis situations of the Emergency Room, they can’t help but find comfort in their mutual attraction.
Becky never meant for it to be more than one night. John never even meant for it to happen. Where do they go from here?
There’s nothing like a mountain fog. It’s hard to put it into words. I remember when I was a kid growing up in Brevard, N.C., I loved foggy mornings. Waiting at the bus stop, I felt like the sky had fallen on me, soft and cool and protective. Later, as a grown-up navigating mountain roads in the fog, I still felt that mystical sense of otherworldliness.
For the past few days, I’ve spent a lot of time poring over pictures of flattened, flooded towns and videos of raging, red rivers full of debris. It’s hard for me to believe this is what’s left of some of the beautiful mountains where I grew up. I’ve lived on the eastern side of the state long enough to know there’s probably more saltwater in my veins than the red clay of the mountains now, but at times like this, I know there’s no denying it.
The coast may have been my destiny, but the mountains are my origin.
I haven’t been back in nearly two years. My mother passed away in February 2023 and I went back for her funeral. After that, my father moved down to Charlotte to be with my uncle and my older brother, and my mountains were just two hours too far to go.
I wonder how it became this hard to take time to get somewhere that’s still important to me.
I heard today that Interstate 40 Westbound was closed at Statesville to stop people wanting to get into the mountains—searching for friends and family, most likely, but maybe just curious. Maybe people like me who suddenly realized that the mountains of their origin might not always be there. The towns we grew up in can be wiped off the earth’s slate.
I’ve heard that Brevard survived, for the most part, in spite of being walloped with 30 inches of rain. But I’ve seen nothing to support that. There’s a webcam in downtown Brevard that is currently offline. I check it daily, sometimes hourly. I know it will likely be days or weeks before it comes back online, if it even survived, but still. It would be reassuring to see.
So little communication is possible, even with my brother and his family who still live there. I’ve gotten a few texts. He managed one phone call to my father.
I feel like the entirety of the North Carolina mountains is shrouded in fog now, but unlike the fog of my childhood, this is not protective, it’s a reminder. Nothing is permanent. Everything can be damaged or taken away.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 