When yesterday itself begins to feel like a memory, what do we do with all our yesteryears?
There are moments when time folds in on itself—when something as simple as a shared glance at the sky carries echoes of years ago, and the present quietly opens a door to the past.
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Where Yesterday Meets Today
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt, inspired by Jennifer Moxley’s “After Turning the Clocks Back,” invites us to write a poem about past and present, using specific details to bring both timelines vividly to life.
Yesterday, Still
I step into my backyard, still on the phone with my daughter,
she walks back to her room from class.
I glance up at the crows roosting home,
ask her to look up into the SoCal sky—
she knows the question beneath it,
I hear it in the pause: she’s counting,
“Amma, I counted a dozen and three
fly over me, how about you?”
My eyes blur, I miss two—
say, “sweetheart, three less than you.”
The call ends—dusk carries me
back to the balcony
where amma and I sat,
what seems like yesterday,
most evenings with masala tea
watching the older boys play cricket in the square.
They could stay out later—
until the crows roosted home.
Then we’d both glance up,
quiet in that shared space and time
and amma would say, “154”—
my reply: “two more.”
~ Vidya Tiru @ LadyInReadWrites
Y Words?
- Yabber (informal): To talk rapidly or noisily, often without much substance. “They yabbered through the entire movie.”
- Yaffle (British dialect): To eat or drink messily; also an old word for the green woodpecker. “He yaffled his jam toast with cheerful abandon.”
- Yardang: A long, wind-eroded ridge found in deserts, shaped by sandblasting. “The desert stretched in lines of sculpted yardangs.”
- Yerk (dialect): To jerk or strike suddenly. “He yerked the rope free with one sharp pull.”
- Yesteryear / Yestertide (poetic/archaic): Times gone by; the past. “Stories of yestertide still echo in old halls.”
- Ylem: In Big Bang cosmology, the original primordial matter from which the universe formed. “All things began as ylem, compressed into a single cosmic seed.”
- Yonderly (Scottish dialect): Dreamy, distant, or slightly absent-minded. “She had a yonderly look, as if her thoughts were miles away.”
The Y Books
You’re a Poet: Ways to Start Writing Poems by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Sam Usher (Ages 6–9): An inviting, playful guide that encourages children to see poetry in everyday moments and start writing their own poems.
You Are My Pride: A Love Letter from Your Motherland by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by E. B. Lewis (Ages 4–8): Written in the voice of Mother Africa, this book is stunning from start to end, an exploration of motherhood in so many ways.
Yellow Dog Blues by Alice Faye Duncan, illustrated by Chris Raschka (Ages 4–8): A lyrical picture book celebrating friendship, music, and the soulful rhythms of the blues.
You Are the Loveliest by Hans & Monique Hagen (Author), Marit Törnqvist (Illustrator), David Colmer (Translator): Sometimes our feelings are so big, our dreams and our worries so wide, that we can’t find the words to express them.
The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy (Ages 10–14): A powerful novel-in-verse memoir of a young girl’s life during the rise of Nazi Germany, told through poems and memories of loss and resilience.
You Are My Favorite Color by Gillian Sze, illustrated by Nina Mata (Ages 4–8): A tender, metaphor-rich story that explores love and identity through the language of color.
And Now, the End of This Post
Dear reader, what small rituals from your past still find their way into your present? Sometimes, all it takes is a pause, and a glance upward, to remember. As always, do let me know which of these words and books appeal to me, and share your favorite Y-words and reads.
