Darby Lyons
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darbylyons.bsky.social
Darby Lyons
@darbylyons.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1K following 4.5K posts
Retired English teacher, poet. Book and music lover. Midwesterner, kind of (Army brat, IYKYK), with Appalachian roots. MFA, Sewanee School of Letters. Senior editorial assistant, Cincinnati Review.
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darbylyons.bsky.social
A few years back, I heard an older man I recognized as a regular at my favorite restaurant talking about my parents' hometown. I introduced myself & learned he was a high school classmate of my dad's, their football team's QB, & my dad was center. Reunions ensued... We go to his funeral tomorrow.😢
Two older men in blue shirts and khakis reenact a football snap. Two older men in blue shirts and khakis stand with their arms around each other's shoulders smiling and one holding their early 1950s high school yearbook.
February 6, 2026 at 8:04 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
this is who runs this account
A little blonde girl in a blue and white fringed cowboy outfit and cowboy hat
February 2, 2026 at 2:53 AM
darbylyons.bsky.social
#smallpoemsunday
After the Fire By Ada Limón You ever think you could cry so hard that there'd be nothing left in you, like how the wind shakes a tree in a storm until every part of it is run through with wind? I live in the low parts now, most days a little hazy with fever and waiting for the water to stop shivering out of the body. Funny thing about grief, its hold is so bright and determined like a flame, like something almost worth living for.
February 1, 2026 at 7:12 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
I wonder what the reviews of Eva's movie are like... Oh...okay, as expected.
Screenshot of review from the Independent: Culture>Film>Reviews Melania review – First -Lady is a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda Hitting cinemas as the streets of America remain filled with the angry and grieving, the vulgar, gilded lifestyle of the Trumps makes them look like Marie Antoinette skulking in her cake-filled chateau Nick Hilton Friday 30 January 2026
January 30, 2026 at 9:25 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Rooftop terrace of my apartment building and view from there of North Bend Ave.
#Cincinnati
Green and black outdoor furniture on a terrace covered in snow. View of a snow covered street from a terrace, snow covered railing in the foreground.
January 25, 2026 at 9:49 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Feels fitting for right now.

by @mkdordiggsy.bsky.social from Worldly Things. Milkweed Editions, 2021.
Michael Kleber-Diggs THE GROVE Planted here as we are, see how we want to bow and sway with the motion of earth in sky. Feel how desire vibrates within us as our branches fan out, promise entanglements, rarely touch. Here, our sweet rustlings. If only we could know how twisted up our roots are, we might make vast shelter together-cooler places, verdant spaces, more sustaining air. But we are strange trees, reluctant in this forest-we oak and ash, we pine- the same the same, not different. All of us reach toward star and cloud, all of us want our share of light, just enough rainfall.
January 23, 2026 at 3:35 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Feeling pretty cranky about this.
WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE SUNDAY NIGHT * WHAT...Heavy snow possible. Total snow accumulations between 6 and 10 inches possible.
January 22, 2026 at 1:04 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Back when I was teaching high school, my family used to think I *couldn't* cook or keep house plants alive. But I used to tell them, it's not that I *can't,* I just *don't.* And now that I'm retired and have both time and energy... Voilà!
A vining plant on a chest with long lush vines going almost down to the floor A small light green plant growing beautifully on a black plant stand A parmesan pork chop next to carmelized Brussels sprouts on a red plate Chicken wings, fried mushrooms and dipping sauces on a green plate.
January 21, 2026 at 9:00 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
I wish I knew who posted about copying a poem by hand in a daily journal last year. I decided to start that this year. I choose a favorite poem, and write it out...a nice, meditative way of starting my day. Thanks to whoever that was! And thanks @victoriachang.bsky.social for today's poem.
Passage Victoria Chang, b. 1970 Every leaf that falls never stops falling. I once thought that leaves were leaves. Now I think they are feeling, in search of a place- someone's hair, a park bench, a finger. Isn't that like us, going from place to place, looking to be alive? MTA Artsä Design POETRY SOCIETY AMERICA Victoria Chang, "Passage from The Trees Witness Everything. Copyright © 2022 by Victoria Chang Reprinted by permission of The Permission Company LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press Ciguapa Antellana, me llamo sueño de la madrugada (who more sci-fi than us) (2018) Firelei Báez, NYC Transit 163 St-Amsterdam Av Station Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design. Photo by Rob Wilson MTA Arts & Design Firelei Báez, Ciguapa Antellana, me llamo sueño de la madrugada (who more sci-fi than us), 2018
January 20, 2026 at 4:45 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk (49,962 words): You can probably breeze through this book in less time than it takes to do a deep dive on the latest Ikea catalogue, but that didn’t stop it from launching Palahniuk’s career as his generation’s most beloved wunderkind of the grotesque. Plus it made for a pretty great movie. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (47,094 words): This slim tome is regularly cited by critics as the best American novel ever written. A legion of high school students may disagree, but at least they can console themselves with the fact that it’s a heck of a lot shorter than Great Expectations. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut (49,459 words): Vonnegut’s masterwork packs more ideas—time travel, gender politics, a potent antiwar allegory, er, aliens putting people on display in zoos—than most novels twice its length. (Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle would also fit nicely on this list, and is equally rich with weirdness.) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (46,333 words): Adams’ book, which pretty much created and then killed the sci-fi comedy genre by perfecting the form in a single go, offers up perhaps the most potent laughs-to-word count ratio in all of literature. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (46,118 words): Bradbury’s most famous work, this visceral story about censorship and oppression wouldn’t provide much fuel for its book-destroying protagonist, but its message sparked a flame that’s still burning bright 60 years later.
January 15, 2026 at 5:36 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
"I can't stand myself."

I love this poem 😎
A Poet’s Poem By Brenda Shaughnessy If it takes me all day, I will get the word freshened out of this poem. I put it in the first line, then moved it to the second, and now it won’t come out. It’s stuck. I’m so frustrated, so I went out to my little porch all covered in snow and watched the icicles drip, as I smoked a cigarette. Finally I reached up and broke a big, clear spike off the roof with my bare hand. And used it to write a word in the snow. I wrote the word snow. I can’t stand myself.
January 14, 2026 at 2:23 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
"Billy's already gone through the frightening door,

whatever he says I'll do."
My Dead Friends by Marie Howe I have begun, when I'm weary and can't decide an answer to a bewildering question to ask my dead friends for their opinion and the answer is often immediate and clear. Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child in my middle age? They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling-whatever leads to joy, they always answer, to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy's ashes were- it's green in there, a green vase, and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes. Billy's already gone through the frightening door, whatever he says I'll do.
January 14, 2026 at 2:18 AM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Another reason to keep going back to @downboundbooks.bsky.social in Cincinnati.
Signs on door say "Immigrants are welcome here. ICE is not." "Downbound Books" Store hours and "ICE/CBP agents are not permitted to enter this space unless they have a valid judicial warrant. Staff and guests are NOT authorized to grant ICE/CBP agents access."
January 13, 2026 at 6:57 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
"Reunion"
by Charles Wright
from China Trace. Wesleyan University Press, 1977.
#smallpoemsunday
Reunion Already one day has detached itself from all the rest up ahead. It has my photograph in its soft pocket. It wants to carry my breath into the past in its bag of wind. I write poems to untie myself, to do penance and disappear Through the upper right-hand corner of things, to say grace.
January 11, 2026 at 6:04 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
"So many sad things"
DOWNHEARTED Six horses died in a tractor-trailer fire. There. That's the hard part. I wanted to tell you straight away so we could grieve together. So many sad things, that's just one on a long recent list that loops and elongates in the chest, in the diaphragm, in the alveoli. What is it they say, heart-sick or downhearted? I picture a heart lying down on the floor of the torso, pulling up the blankets over its head, thinking the pain will go on forever (even though it won't). The heart is watching Lifetime movies and wishing, and missing all the good parts of her that she has forgotten. The heart is so tired of beating herself up, she wants to stop it still, but also she wants the blood to return, wants to bring in the thrill and wind of the ride, the fast pull of life driving underneath her. What the heart wants? The heart wants her horses back. -ADA LIMÓN
January 10, 2026 at 3:03 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
"How can a body withstand this?"
POETRY FOUNDATION Q The Thing Is BY ELLEN BASS to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you down like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think, How can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, again.
January 6, 2026 at 4:19 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Oh my.
Merriam Webster logo next to "Your 2026 Word" and below that, my word is "sultry."
January 1, 2026 at 4:09 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
If you see this, post a random image from your device.
Animated show characters from Miraculous, Ladybug and Cat Noir, one with blonde hair, a black mask, and cat ears; the other in a polkadot outfit and mask with blue hair
December 31, 2025 at 11:23 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
My favorite couple enjoying Christmas ❤️🎁❤️
An older lady stands next to an older man who is sitting in a chair, both smiling broadly
December 25, 2025 at 4:40 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
A favorite photo from December 2020, taken on the Ida Street bridge in Mt Adams.
In the distance, a tall building and a bright blue sky with streaks of white clouds, the syn shining in the on the left side of the sky with rays reflecting in the foreground, along with Christmas greenery and ornament decorations on the overlook edge of a street bridge
December 25, 2025 at 1:01 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
"I have also felt as if one warm breath might drop me,

but here I am still standing."
Tipping Point EMRY TRANTHAM Our tree fell when no one was in the living room. We guessed it was hung too heavily in the front, and when the heat began to blow from the vents, the gust was just enough to tip it all. I have also felt as if one warm breath might drop me, but here I am still standing. Here I am bending down, picking up glittering glass grains with not quite enough care, hushing the children and telling them it's fine, it's fine-only a few baubles broken and can't everything in the world be replaced? It can't, of course, but no need to admit that here, at Christmas, with shards of glass in my palm.
December 23, 2025 at 4:14 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
"Midwinter" by Nadia Colburn
from I Say the Sky, University Press of Kentucky, 2024.
Midwinter I think it's okay to write another poem about the light-about the white heron who rises over the black oil spill at the edge of the city. I don't know if the heron is full of joy as she lifts her long body up, as she hurls herself ( is that what she does?), airward, a motion I will never know how to make. I don't know whether the heron is going home or whether she lives here, whether she escapes suffering or, more probably, not. I do know I do not need to apologize for my own gladness, today, midwinter, that has no apparent cause in the daylight cast from the sun.
December 21, 2025 at 3:25 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
I had to move a small table to the corner by my bed for my CPAP machine. Switched it with my little childhood rocker with my ~60-year-old Winnie the Pooh. Now it's in my reading corner, so it looks like it's also a convo with Pooh corner. I like it.
Corner of a bedroom with a plant stand and plant, floor lamp, light blue chair and ottoman, small bookcase, and a small rocking chair with a sunflower throw over the back and a worn Winnie the Pooh sitting in it, facing the blue chair.
December 20, 2025 at 2:26 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
Rock Me, Mercy By Yusef Komunyakaa The river stones are listening because we have something to say. The trees lean closer today. The singing in the electrical woods has gone dumb. It looks like rain because it is too warm to snow. Guardian angels, wherever you're hiding, we know you can't be everywhere at once. Have you corralled all the pretty wild horses? The memory of ants asleep in daylilies, roses, holly, & larkspur. The magpies gaze at us, still waiting. River stones are listening. But all we can say now is, Mercy, please, rock me.
December 15, 2025 at 3:01 PM
darbylyons.bsky.social
How it started/How it's going...

My parents when they were dating and my parents in a brochure for their retirement community.

Married 68 years tomorrow ❤️
Black and white photo of a young woman in blouse and skirt, bobby socks and saddle shoes reclining next to a young man in a button down shirt, sweater, and khakis Brightly colored photo of an older man with a cane holding hands with an older woman as they walk down a sidewalk lined with lush green grass and plants
December 14, 2025 at 12:32 AM