Month: April 2022

Six Word Story (65)

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Have you ever pulled a plant out of those flimsy plastic pots they start them in at greenhouses and garden departments? It always scares me when I do.

What if I damage the flower? What if I damage roots as I pull it from its home?

But the truth is, that little plant NEEDS to be pulled from the plastic, and planted in good earth. It won’t thrive confined like that, even surrounded by its siblings. That plastic tray was made to only be a safe starting place.

Don’t stay in your plastic pot. We are meant for so much more.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Photo sourced from Unsplash.com

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Miller Farm Fairy

marygracewriting4 Comments

Originally Written in 2009 while sending time in Bourbon Indiana on my Grandparents Farm. We enjoyed many walks down to the pond and dressing up in cattails and corn leaves sparked my imagination.

Her skirts are bound with borrowed twine,
Its folds of corn-leaf silk.
Braided reeds with clover, wheat,
Above a face as sweet as milk.

Her cheeks glow pink, her feet are bare.
Eyes a-twinkle in the light.
Heals they stain a healthy green
As they dance with all their might.

She is friends with the old elm tree;
Names the drying cornstalks.
Talks with people and things unseen…
But only till it’s six O’clock!

Then it’s off with her corn-leaf skirts,
Goodbye to pond and field.
For mother will be calling soon,
The table spread. It’s time to eat.

Bath with a story,
Sleep with sweet dreams.
Rest until tomorrow,
A day filled with many new things.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Red Stuff by Mike Bonikowski

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By: Mike Bonikowsky

Cover art by: Sarah Christolini

Published by: Solum Press

There is not a single poem in Mike Bonikowsky’s ‘Red Stuff’ that I did not love. Every word is a word of lament, praise, worship, connection, question, awe of and too God.


“Sing to the Lord, all ye mid-restoration”

– From Invocation –


His gift is in highlighting the pain of every day, be it through family life, or work. But not simply highlighting, he lays it at the feet of the cross and raises the lantern he keeps lit with words in readiness for the coming bridegroom.
I was so blessed while being humbled while reading these words.

Mary Grace van der Kroef

Six Word Story (64)

marygracewriting4 Comments

Campfires are one of my favorite things. As a little girl, I loved to char the end of a stick in the fire, and use it to write.

I didn’t realise the profound truth I was playing with. Often it’s out of destruction that we find the tools to create our greatest works of art. It comes with the accepting, the healing, and finally the drive to use what we have learned.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Photo sourced from unsplash.com

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Washed Out

marygracewriting3 Comments

I found this poem from 2008 hiding in my files. It was written before I considered myself a writer, and before I ever dreamed of being a poet. I thought it would be fun to share it with all of you.

In fields of grey
and washed out rose,
Beneath a sky
in eternal repose,

Opposite a Rainbow,
its edges torn,
Beside a bramble
full of thorns,

While set against
a horizon, worn,
Laid across
a brook so forlorn,

Is a precious place
imprinted deep,
on wooden planking
where he sat to weep.

He watched
a little boat drift,
so far away
his last loving gift.

Carved from a branch
leaf for a sail,
it bobbed down stream
green foam on its tail.

The lady fair
he had dressed in moss,
her fragile wings
still held high aloft.

With her went his worlds
colour and life.
His soul skipped a beat
at this, his first strife.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

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Quip Corner with Ada

marygracewriting3 Comments

I recently enjoyed having a conversation with Ada from Quip Corner, about my book ‘The Branch That I Am.’

I enjoyed our conversation and I hope you do as well!

Ada is the author of the 101 QUIPS AND QUOTES BOOK COLLECTION. for the last 2 years she has used her YouTube channel Quips Corner to promote other authors in celebration of World Book and Copy Write day. I know she would love to have you tune in for the rest of the month. Don’t forget to go back and watch the interviews from earlier in April.

Thank you Ada, for blessing me with this interview!

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Six Word Story (63)

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In the lonely places, in the in between, there is a light that stands witness.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Photo sourced from Unsplash.com

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.
Psalm 139: 7-12 English Standard Version
On BibleGateway.com

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Splinter

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Like
a splinter in the foot
you just can’t seem to see,
is the pain within a heart
filled with
anxiety.
No one else can see
pain
that you now feel.
Often times you ask
if it’s even truly
real.
Walk about your day,
the prick
will stab with pain.
Balancing
the wound
becomes a dripping drain.
Energy is lost,
focus on protect.
Friendships
pays the cost,
when attention you
deflect.
How
to remove
a shard that can’t be seen?
First admit,
discard
pretending’s screen.
Allow
a probing look.
A gentle searching poke.
Trust
someone who knows,
this pain in not a joke.
Often
it may feel
like a bandage ripped away.
The sting,
it may endure
well into your day.
But,
pain of healing hands
is worth a season’s rest.
It’s a pain that’s bearable
when into tears it’s
pressed.
Gentle
words may pinch,
a tweezers searching bite.
And tears can wash away,
splinters
and their bite.

©2021 Mary Grace van der Kroef

‘Splinter,’ was originally published in Fahmidan Journal‘s Issue 6: Autoimmune & Mental Health Warriors. Page 10–11.

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Six Word Story (62)

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Honesty is beautiful. When it’s brutal, when it’s gentle, when it grieves, or when it stands on the borders of our perception, just waiting for us to look its way, it’s still beautiful.

May I never lose the love of honesty.

©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef

Photo sourced from Unsplash.com

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Pots of Hope

marygracewriting5 Comments

Have you heard the plastic pull as knife slides across bag of black earth?
Have you felt the beginnings of warmth as matter clings to fingerprints and stains nails dark?
The dirt is chill. Yet the warmth flows, packed in pots of hope.
Have you listened to the rustle of paper release seeds from captivity?
Smallness containing miraculous promise.
Snow may linger, but add a pane of glass to a sun of spring and greenhouses blossom in
earliest spring.
It makes my heart ring.
Simple actions reminding, surrounded by soil’s grounding scent.

©2021 Mary Grace van der Kroef

‘Pots of Hope‘ was originally published by Dwelling Literary in the GREENHOUSE Issue. Page 22.

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