Welcome to the first July Showcase for Write On! Extra. I’m Julie Dexter, a writer and your returning Showcase Editor. I’m delighted to be curating this month’s theme: Reflections.

Reflections, as a theme, holds a vast spectrum of meanings. Over the next five weeks, I’ll be exploring its many layers, from the literal return of light or sound, to the metaphorical echoes that speak to who we are. Reflections can take us on personal journeys, reaching deep into the distant past to unearth forgotten truths, or simply pausing to contemplate the passing of a single day.

To my mind, the idea of reflections reveals the quiet workings of the soul, illuminates our inner state, or may expose the impact of our behaviours: on ourselves and others. Sometimes reflection involves reckoning: with judgment, with imputation, and the emotional fallout that can follow. At other times, it invites growth through quiet contemplation or unexpected synchronicity.

This week, we’ll begin by exploring concrete and visual renderings of the theme; those moments when reflection takes shape through what we can see, touch, and perceive. From mirrored images and shadowed surfaces to scenes that speak through light and form, we’ll look at how reflection manifests in the physical world and what deeper meanings it might hold. Lots to unpack and explore!

Let’s begin with a contemplative metaphorical poem by Mary Walsh which offers the reader an aerial view of our beautiful world. I liked this poem as it describes how when you come to think about mighty earth’s beauty and magnitude, one can feel awestruck when reflecting how small and insignificant we actually are.

Seen From Above

Below me the earth is laid blue
Oceans roll azure and sapphire
Emeralds peep from the surface
My insignificance deep
among its shallows and obsidian depth.
I stand on a rise in the land
Surveying the beauty of the ocean
The scent of salt carried on the breeze
The movement and everchanging hues
Lifting my puny soul
Setting my place
On this beautiful earth
I am small
against it’s mighty landscape
yet it comforts me.

(c) Mary Walsh, 2025

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This month, I’m contributing two haiku poems for the Reflections theme, each exploring ideas of light and mirror imagery. Haiku is a traditional Japanese poetic form, often evoking a moment in nature or a fleeting emotion. It typically follows a 5-7-5 syllable structure, though contemporary haiku often stretches or breaks this rule to focus on mood, clarity, or stark minimalism.

While one of my poems follows the classic structure, the second deviates from it, reflecting how modern haiku has evolved well beyond the formalism of early masters such as Bashō and Lafcadio Hearn. Today, some haiku use only ten syllables or fewer, distilling thought and image into something even more stark and spare. My own pieces aim to balance tradition with a more contemporary, reflective edge.

The first poem offers a more abstract take on the theme. Using mirror imagery, it reflects on the way we perceive the world and ourselves. Mirrors, like memory, don’t just show what’s there: they shape how we see, often revealing more light than shadow, more depth than surface.

The second poem is a meditation on memory and presence. I wrote it for a beautiful soul who was brutally murdered while out walking her dog. The tragedy deeply affected me, and I wanted her friend, who was devastated by her untimely passing, to be reminded of her light whenever sunbeams break through the day.

Mirrors

see more light than dark

reflect more form than shadow

more ocean than land

Light

I look for you in

the sun’s morning rays, a prism

in every one

(c) Julie Dexter, 2025

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Next up, a piece of prose by James Marshall. I was particularly drawn to this because it captures a powerful truth: once something is written and printed, there’s no taking it back. It stands as a reflection of what you thought you wanted to say; a moment frozen in ink or on screen.

In this story, a concrete image on a classroom whiteboard becomes just such a moment. It’s visible to everyone, unmistakable. But Miss Bibby doesn’t see it quite the same way. Her perspective shifts the meaning – and the impact – of what’s been written, revealing how interpretation and intention can so easily diverge.

Midnight Becomes Eclectic

Miss Bibby wrote the opening line of the novel on the blackboard: Midnight becomes eclectic. Chalk dust covered one of her cheeks like an 18th-Century fop. She turned at the sound of sniggering.

“Who’s laughing?” Her high-pitched voice floated as far as the first row of pupils.

Sylvia put her left hand up before the question was finished. Her right arm was in a sling: the RSI in her shoulder caused by violently jerking her hand up 27 times per lesson.

Miss Bibby straightened her glasses, leaving a chalk smudge on her nose. Come on, anyone but Sylvia. She scanned the rest of the pupils, who looked down at their desks. Several pairs of shoulders were shaking but she couldn’t tell them off for that.

She relented. “Yes, Sylvia.”

Sylvia sat upright like a blackbird calling for a mate. “Miss, shouldn’t it be: ‘Midnight becomes electric’?”

That’s what I’ve written. Miss Bibby turned and read her quote. Or have I? Her dyslexia was a problem when teaching English. Her ears reddened as she realised that she didn’t know if she had made a mistake or whether the pupils were joshing her.

“Midnight becomes electric,” she said in her most forceful voice. A decibel reached the second row, only to be returned on a wave of sniggers that washed over Miss Bibby. She fumbled with her chalk duster before hurrying out of the classroom as fast as her wedge heels would allow.

I can’t cope with them any more. Tears and snot welled from her eyes and nose. A hot flush rose and she wiped sweat away from her brow, leaving a trail of chalk in its place. She slammed the staff room door shut and leant against it, her chest heaving as she tried to gulp in air.

Mr Morris looked up from his marking. He covered his coffee cup with an exercise book and fumbled with something in the pocket of his checked jacket. “What’s the matter, Dorothy?”

Miss Bibby knew Mr Morris poured whisky into his coffee. He smelt of it, even over his pipe smoke. The pupils whispered, “Whisky” behind his back in the corridors.

“It’s Year 10 again. They’re out of control.” Miss Bibby took a paper tissue she kept at the end of her cardigan sleeve and blew her nose.  She sat on the tattered arm of the leather sofa that was criss-crossed with scars. “Have you got any whisky, Ted?”

Mr Morris coughed, and hawked, and ran over to a window to spit. “Er, no I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dorothy.”

Miss Bibby lifted the exercise book and gulped down the black coffee. The tingling of the whisky and the bitterness of the coffee flushed through her. It might not make me feel better but at least it can numb the pain. Only four more years until she could leave teaching and retire to her garden and peace.

(c) James Marshall, 2025

Connect with James on Substack: SUBSTACK.COM/@JAMESRMARSHALL

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My final choice this week is a poem by Ray Miles, set in the Lake District — a place that holds a special resonance for me. One summer, I spent a week there alone, walking through the meres and dales and was struck by how deeply the landscape speaks. James’s poem captures that beautifully: the sense that the land holds memory, its ethereal quality shaped by those who’ve passed through it before.

There are poetic and musical echoes, too: from the legacy of Thomas De Quincey and the carousing at Nab Cottage, to the emotional currents stirred by time, solitude, and shared paths. I remember meeting fellow walkers on Wainwright’s peaks who’d say, “Only four more to go. We’ve done Catbells, and Blencathra…” I’ve yet to conquer Scafell myself, but I did manage to haul myself up the Langdale Pikes.

I chose Ray’s poem because the shifting landscape becomes a mirror for the people who once lived among these hills and waters. It reflects not just natural change, but something more timeless: the human traces that remain, long after footsteps have faded.

A Journey In The Lakes

Moving among the thwaites, the dales, the meres,
timeless names that say so much,
the sun’s rays pierce the early morning gloom
as I journey to the east,
revealing fingers of cloud clinging to the fells,
reluctant to leave.
They drift gently across the granite strewn surface
with a lover’s caress.
The dun of bracken gives way to shades of green,
the grass and fresh new leaves
of gnarled, stunted bushes eking out their survival
on the windswept slopes.
The sheep are small white patches in the stone-walled fields,
like an imperfect painting.
I gaze in wonder at this natural beauty, while feeling the spirits
of those who walked here before:
Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge; they breathed this air
and wrote their words
leaving their legacy for the future, for people like me
to imbibe and pleasure in.
As I journey to the east and the sun gets stronger,
the landscape changes.
The dramatic hills subside, become rounded, undulating,
at peace with their surrounds.

© Ray Miles, 2025

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Connect with Julie on her website: juliedexterwriter.com, Facebook: @julieadexter, Instagram: @latenightswimmer, Bluesky: @juliedexterwriter and X: @julieadexter

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