I’m taking a holiday by Shawn Aveningo Sanders

I’m taking a holiday

from headlines, and I’m not the only one.
I walk through a nearby neighborhood,
the kind with a community pool
and a new elementary school
between row after row of houses.
Cul-de-sacs of cocoa & cookies,
lights adorn rooftops down each street,
everyone saving each other a seat
for the big Holiday Parade. Scouts
setting up for a bake sale, tables of
treats their moms helped make sweet.
I stop at a house with one blue spotlight
and a red bucket hung on a hook,
where a plaque invites me to Take One.
Hoping to find a little poem inside,
there’s a handwritten prayer instead.
And though I didn’t feel the need,
I was grateful for the offering, this
token of kinship from a stranger—
and how I found myself believing
maybe—just maybe—We the People
can still turn things around.

*

Shawn Aveningo Sanders’ poems have appeared in journals worldwide, including Calyx, ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, Drifting Sands, Quartet, Timberline Review, Cloudbank, Sheila-Na-Gig, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and many others. Her new book, Pockets (MoonPath Press, 2025) was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest. Shawn is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee. A proud mom and Nana, she shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon, where they run a small press, The Poetry Box. When she’s not writing, you might find her in a shoe store hunting for a new pair of red shoes. (redshoepoet.com)