Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apocalypse, endtimes, haiku, poetry, present, short poem on May 20, 2013| 6 Comments »
don’t blame me
if the apocalypse comes
before I’m done dusting
*
everything
that’s been taken from me
was first given to me
*
how easily we say
these words, next week,
as if it will come
*
why we plant seeds—
because we’ve made a life
out of old tomorrows
*
even though
it’s the thousandth rainbow
still running to look
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, forgetfulness, friendship, poem, poetry on May 19, 2013| 2 Comments »
Your birthday. I forgot it.
After all these years, I imagine
that comes as no surprise.
Still, I am no less sorry for it.
I was playing badminton with my son
yesterday when I remembered.
Remember how you and I played
badminton for hours and hours in the field
that day? How long the days were then.
Last weekend I planted greens in our yard.
I thought of you and your garden boxes
and how many meals
we have eaten surrounded
by corn, squash, tomatoes and peppers.
I can’t grow any of those things here.
Too high. Not all seeds grow
where they’re planted. And even
if they do, they don’t survive.
But already some of the lettuce
and baby bok choy have come up.
Arugula, too. I suppose
now is the time to thin them,
now when they’re tiny.
This is always the hardest part for me.
How to choose which one
of the seedlings should live?
I remember how your mother
would grow lettuces in pots
outside your door.
At my home, we ate only iceberg,
and so I was shocked at the colors
that grew there on your porch.
Your birthday. That was
the first time we went out together,
were we eleven? Twelve? I’m too lazy
to do the math. We were young,
and you’d invited all those adults
to your party. I was shocked
that a girl could be friends
with grown ups. How much you taught me.
Like how to eat lettuce that was red
or dark green. How to enjoy foreign movies
with subtitles. How to run rivers
and sing. How to say yes to someone
and keep saying yes to them
even when everyone else
tells you to say no.
I don’t remember which of us
won the badminton games.
I would guess that we didn’t play
for score. Isn’t it funny, the way
the memories thin themselves.
And friendships, too, how
so many of the seeds sown
years ago started strong,
even blossomed,
but bolted, or never grew fruit.
But you and I, we are more like
the oregano plant that finds
new ways to survive. Even if
the garden is rototilled, turned,
and dried, the roots escape and find new
places to thrive. Still,
we are both the kind of woman
who likes to water things
so they grow. Your birthday.
Happy Birthday. I’m sorry
I’m late. Even these near-summer days
seem so short. Here, some water
from my heart to yours.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged learning, poem, poetry, tanka, unlearning on May 18, 2013| 4 Comments »
reading in my journal
the lesson I learned two years
ago the same lesson
I was so thrilled
to learn today
*
I leave the dishes
when you say “let’s play,”
not because I want
to play but because the day
will come when you won’t ask
*
the veil
of hurt, though it
weighs nothing
I am utterly unable
to lift it
*
sowing poppy seeds
in the meadow together,
though it will be months
before we see stems
already I feel blossoming
*
what would be left
if we solved all our troubles—
just a breathing
sometimes when I get very still
I am still not still enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged impermanence, knowing, poem, poetry on May 17, 2013| 2 Comments »
This feeling
this tattered net
this piece of cake
this morning
this poem
this broken yolk
this dandelion
this warning
this girl
and her friend
and the song
they are singing
this scent of green
this in between
this longing
this knowing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, night, poem, poetry on May 16, 2013| 8 Comments »
I have wanted
to love you. Not just
to love you, but to love you
in the way you want to be loved.
This is not always the same thing.
A woman walks out into night
and it holds her. Sometimes
this comforts her. Sometimes
she is terrified. Sometimes
she loses her own edges
and becomes night.
There is no loss in this.
There is a moment
just before we say
I love you when the feeling
is truer than the syllables
that follow. That’s what
I am trying to do.
What night does.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, friendship, insecurity, poem, poetry on May 16, 2013| 7 Comments »
I bet you would never guess
how nervous I was to call you.
I bet you’d be surprised
to know the size of the gap
I imagined between us—
whole oceans could be swallowed
in there. You with your easy laugh.
You with all your friends. Surely
you have all those friends in part
because you are friendly.
But I was scared. Scared
I was not enough—
not smart enough, not cool
enough, not funny enough,
not strong enough, not self
sufficient enough to be your friend.
Oh that insecure part of me,
I know it does no good to judge her.
So I look at the insecure me,
and I look at the me
who would judge her,
and I get to look at the me
who can love her
and all of us get in the car together
and drive to your house
to drink coffee and talk
and do what friends do—
jump in the gap
and swim.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged burial, death, gravedigger, humanity, New Verse News, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Thomas Lynch on May 15, 2013| 1 Comment »
Did anyone else hear the interview with the undertaker on NPR last week? It was part of the inspiration for this poem of mine, published in New Verse News today. New Verse News is, incidentally, a really interesting emag that publishes poems written around current events, in this case the debacle surrounding the burial of the Boston Bomber.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apology, daughter, epistle, mother, peace, poem, poetry, wanting on May 14, 2013| 6 Comments »
I’m sorry I didn’t let you
watch a movie when we got home tonight.
And I’m sorry I didn’t let you
have a piece of gum before bed.
And I’m sorry it was too late tonight
for a story. I’m sorry.
Not sorry in a guilty way,
but sorry in that I know
how hard it is to want something
and not get it. I know what it’s like
to convince yourself that your happiness
depends on that thing, that whatever thing
that you don’t have.
All those tears. I have cried them, too.
It did not matter that I was loved,
that the bed was warm, that
my belly was full, that the sky
was a lovely shade of peach.
I did not have what I thought
I must have. It does not change
when you’re older. Oh, the whatevers
change, but the longing
is part of being alive.
Tonight I wanted you
to stop crying. I wanted it enough
it nearly made me cry.
But even more than that
I wanted something else
I can’t explain to you.
That greater wanting,
some kind of peace—
could you feel it, too, as it fell on us
like the most gentle rain,
how it fell on your anger,
my helplessness, your wanting,
my wanting—the kind of peace
that touches everything just as it is
and doesn’t change a thing
and changes everything.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, daughter, language acquisition, mothering, verb tenses on May 13, 2013| 1 Comment »
Vivian Learns Present Progressive
Finn says to me yesterday, on Mother’s Day, “Mom, when is kid’s day?” My husband replied, “Everyday.” So in that spirit of the ongoing celebration of our children–how they teach us and undo us–here’s a poem published today in the beautiful Journey of the Heart blog.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gardening, hero, mother, narrator, poem, poetry, satsang, son on May 12, 2013| 8 Comments »
While digging
in the garden rows,
my son looks up
from his work
of ripping apart a clump
of roots and says to me,
Mom, how could
anything ever go wrong
with this day,
and I think,
my darling,
you teach me
so beautifully.
There are days
we forget that life
will unfold for us
if we let it.
It’s not that nothing
could go wrong.
Of course it will.
But if we are not
the heroes of our
days, rather the narrators
who notice and relate
all the events,
whether cheerful or tragic,
with equal interest,
well then even
the wrong things
are right. As it is,
he does not step
barefoot on the hoe
with its spikes
turned up nor do I
hobble to the house
with a back too sore
to stand. And the day
unfolds as some days
do, with nearly nothing
to report except the
weather—warm,
some clouds, the sun
still gaining—and
a mother and son
got the planting done.
Nothing to show for it yet
except the smile on my face
and the dirt still under
his fingernails. But I have
to admit I am glad there was
nothing painful or difficult.
And on this day, my son
is the hero of the poem.
And I can watch his mother
typing out her joy as if
I am not the same woman.
Between these two view points,
there is a garden. I walk
its rows. I bring it water.
What grows is what will grow.