Dad would lie on his back
in the middle of the living room.
I would step into his open palms
on either side of his shoulders
and slowly, he’d lift me into the air.
I loved the wavering, the bobble
before the balance, the moments
of freedom when I floated above him.
Today, when the concert ended
with “What a Wonderful World,”
it was only in the last verse I realized
they’d played Dad’s favorite song
on this day, his birthday, almost
five years after his death, and
I felt it again, that sense of being
elevated by a power greater than my own.
Tears falling even as I started
to laugh. Laughter rising even
as I started to cry. The gift of it all
swirling in me as ecstatic as the violins,
primal and playful as the drum beat,
unexpected as the riffs on the piano,
familiar as my dad’s hands wrapped
around my soles pressing me higher,
oh wonderful world, higher.
Posts Tagged ‘childhood’
July 5
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, childhood, dad, daughter, father, memory, music, remembrance, what a wonderful world on July 5, 2026| 2 Comments »
Formative
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, childhood, chosen, games, growing up, popularity on March 3, 2026| 2 Comments »
I would sit in the circle,
gut flopping like a fish
while the fox walked around
to pat us each on the head.
Duck. Duck. Duck.
Bright fizz of adrenaline
frothing in the blood
as the hand came closer.
Duck. Duck.
Please pick me. Don’t pick me.
Half wanting to be chosen,
half wanting not,
because I was the child
who had to stew in the pot
for five more rounds
because I’d get caught.
Duck. Duck.
Not wanting to be chosen
’cause I knew I’d sit alone.
Oh, shame of the center.
Shame of being slow.
Please pick me. Don’t pick me.
Oh. I am not the goose.
Oh, longing to be chosen,
wanting the proof
that I could be a child
other children would choose.
In Second Grade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, commerce, money, mother, music, work on March 30, 2025| 2 Comments »
I wanted that plastic recorder.
Wanted it so much that when mom
suggested I could earn that two dollars
by defrosting the freezer, I sat
on the black-and-white tiled kitchen floor
with a blow drier on high. For hours.
Sat there watching each drip.
Sat there longer, perhaps,
than the cumulative time I played
my recorder, but I tell you,
I cherished that brown plastic tube.
Every “Hot Cross Buns” I played
was an anthem to self-determination.
Almost fifty years later I don’t remember
what I read yesterday, but I remember
one a penny, two a penny.
I remember the drip, drip, drip of the frost.
I remember my mom saying,
No, not yet. Keep going.
I remember my lips on the mouthpiece,
the flesh of my fingertips
pressed on the holes,
the shrill music filling the kitchen.
Recess, Second Grade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, childhood, grass, inner child, nature on April 28, 2024| 13 Comments »
Past the blacktop, past the swings
a girl has wandered into tall grass,
dry and golden and high, and look
how she tucks in beneath the seed heads
and makes in the stems a nest,
lies on her back and looks up at the sky.
She can hear the screams and squeals
of other children as they play.
But here she is daughter of silence,
fallen angel of sunshine. There are wings
inside her breath. What does she know
that I have forgotten? What does she
love that I now squint to see?
Where does she still live in this woman,
this wanderling who was me?
Offering Gentleness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, clouds, gentleness on September 7, 2022| 6 Comments »
Gentle is time to be gentle.
—Ole Dalby, private correspondence
Gentle is time to be gentle,
he writes, and I let myself
fall into the cadence of his words
the way as a girl I once dreamt
I could fall into a cloud—
something soft beyond soft,
something infinitely calm.
Gentle is time to be gentle,
he writes, and though
my mind struggles to decipher it,
my body instantly nestles
into the tenderness of it,
as if he has wrapped each word
in cumulonimbus, as if gentleness
is the only obvious path, as if I, too,
might offer such gentleness
to someone else with words
spun of nimbostratus, with syllables
of cirrus, with thoughts as cushiony
as the clouds we once drew as kids,
those clouds we once lived in
before we were told we could not.
The Pale Scar on My Ankle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bike, childhood, daughter, father, love on June 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »
reminds me of the day
my dad held me
in front of him
while riding his bike
and fifty years later,
I remember most
the moments before
the bite of the spokes
when we were laughing
in the muggy Wisconsin June,
the sky dark with rain,
the joy of being held by him,
the thrill of going fast,
the wind in our faces.
I remember most
how he picked me up
as I cried and carried me
as if I were precious.
Fifty years later,
though he is the one
in pain, he still picks me up
and carries me every time
we speak. Thousands
of miles away, he holds
me close.
Red Rover, Red Rover
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, friendship, game, sickness on April 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
The only rule:
keep the chain intact.
I didn’t know
in the grade school gym
it was a way to practice
meeting all that would try
to break us apart,
practice being bombarded,
practice calling in our fear.
Red Rover, Red Rover
let sickness come over.
Once it felt like a game.
Now—oh friend.
Hold on to my wrist.
I’ll hold on to yours.
Ode to the Bic Lighter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, fire, light on February 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
My first lighter I found in a parking lot—
a smooth red plastic tube that fit
in my pocket. I knew playing with fire
was dangerous. I knew I wanted
to learn how. I remember trying again
and again to get the right purchase
with my thumb on the serrated sparkwheel.
I rolled and rolled until my skin was raw,
until at last the brief flame sputtered then died.
It wasn’t long before it came second nature—
the smooth flick needed to produce a spark,
the slight pressure on the red tongue
to maintain steady flame.
I learned how it burns
to be lit up too long,
but once you know how to make light,
how easy it is to bring it with you
everywhere you go.
This poem is published in the wonderful ONE ART Poetry Journal
In the Basement of the Old Stone Library
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book, childhood, library, reading on November 17, 2020| 6 Comments »
Off the hot street and down
the narrow stairwell,
I entered the smell of books—
a musty scent of paper and ink.
How I loved entering the stacks,
shelves taller than I was.
Loved running my hands
along hardcover spines
wondering at the worlds inside.
I was allowed twelve thin books,
that meant twelve chances
to travel to realms where monkeys
stole hats and the Whangdoodle snoozed.
Twelve chapters in which I
was no longer an awkward girl
but a baker in an old village
or a mouse in an attic befriending a girl
who was something like me,
or at least like the girl I wished I could be,
a girl who was brave, a girl
who couldn’t help but stumble
every single time
into happily ever after.
Things You Didn’t Want to Play
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, loneliness, play, writing on October 2, 2020| 6 Comments »
Like Monopoly. Because you always ended up landing on Boardwalk
where the red hotel meant you owed two thousand dollars
and all you had were mortgaged railroads. Or like checkers,
because really, what was fun about moving small plastic disks
diagonally and hearing the other kid say, “King me.” And soccer?
Only because your mother made you because she wanted
to be coach. You did want to play school, but no one else did,
so you were the principal, the teacher, the student,
giving yourself homework, grading it yourself. Writing in red
in your best cursive at the top of the page, “See me.”
You didn’t want to play basketball, because no one else
ever chose you for their team. Even though you were tall.
And you were chosen last for volleyball, too. And t-ball.
And Red Rover. And dodge ball. Is it any wonder your favorite
way to play was to visit the junkyard and find treasure?
Or to walk along the lake to look for flowers and worms?
Is it any wonder you learned to love playing alone
in quiet rooms with an empty page and a pen?
There was no way then you could have known
that it would save you—no, you just thought
you were playing the only way you knew how,
walking through the only doors
you knew how to open yourself.
Those Bright Lights
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, ferris wheel, innocence, Pewaukee on July 13, 2020| 3 Comments »
That was the summer
they drove the Ferris wheel into town,
erecting it in the park—
and James Taylor and Carly Simon
sang to each other over the radio
and people paid money
to throw ping pong balls into small jars
for the chance to win a goldfish;
to throw darts at balloons
for a giant teddy bear.
The park smelled of beer and grilled corn
and from the top of the ride,
I could almost see the whole town—
down to the five and dime and up to the cemetery.
Those were the days before I knew words
such as mercy or duplicity or forgiveness.
The cotton candy melted on my tongue in sharp crystals.
The Ferris wheel was gone the next day,
my pocket full of tickets I couldn’t spend.
Remembering the Bozo Bop Bag
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bozo, childhood, poem, poetry, resilience on February 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
My brother thrilled to pummel and punch
that red-nosed clown again and again—
an inflatable plastic sack with a round weighted base—
and always the clown returned to standing.
Forty years later, I still don’t want to punch anything,
wish, instead, I could be more like that red and blue Bozo,
could roll and twist and spin each time
life knocks me over, and though I wobble,
though I bob, I would defy the laws of physics
return to standing, yes I would,
and find a way to smile.
Before I Could Read, There Was the Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, literacy, poem, poetry, reading, tree on November 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
The day is quiet and
the light is strong and I sit alone
in the V of the weeping willow
in a place where the sun can’t reach me
and no one can see me.
I pull off the bark in thick rough slabs,
and the day is drowsy and the light
is long and the bark feels rough
in my four-year-old hands,
but I flip it and find it is smooth
underneath where it touches the tree.
Yes, the bark is smooth, like my dress,
like me, and I move my fingers across
the soft side, surprised by the secret writings there—
meandering marks that slither and wriggle
in cursive spells, some language only
the tree can tell, that only I can read.
And the day is page and the light
is song and I am not at all alone,
perhaps there is writing inside me, too,
the bark thrilling in my hands.
How Long Has It Been?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, doll, love, poem, poetry on November 12, 2016| 2 Comments »
They sit on the shelf now, mostly,
or have moved into boxes of memory,
those soft cloth dolls we once cradled
and cuddled and dragged from bed
to the yard to the car to the store.
They went everywhere with us,
their small yarn eyes always open,
never narrowing in disapproval,
never turning to shine on someone else.
Their plump cheeks eternally blushing,
their smile never uncurling
into disinterest, never snarling
into disdain. We could tell them
everything—about the girl
down the street who jeered
that our plaid pants were too short,
who sneered at the way we ran.
We could tell them about
the blue monster who lived in the closet,
and how he sometimes slipped out
to crawl beneath our bed.
And they listened. And smiled.
And let us hold them and suck
on their hands—or their hats—if that’s
what made the night feel safe.
They never whispered mean
words about us to their friends
while we were off at school.
Sometimes, it’s true, they would
disappear. That’s what all
beloved things do. And then,
days later perhaps, they’d be found
under a pillow on the couch or out
beneath the willow tree sitting
in the dirt beside the shovel and pail.
Now, it is we who have disappeared
into the world of harder things—
keys and doors and ceilings,
and women with words
like sticks and men with eyes
that seldom meet our eyes.
We are too old for dolls.
Still, there is in us, perhaps,
the faded longing to hold something
soft, something so familiar,
something so well loved,
so absent of cruelty
it makes us feel capable
of loving utterly, unguardedly again.
From My Kitchen in Colorado
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arrival, childhood, poem, poetry on August 13, 2016| 1 Comment »
Long before we could see
the smokestacks rising above
the rooftops of Madison,
my brother and I would shout
from the backseat,
“I see Oscar Mayer!”
Though we had never been in,
it was the building where
our grandfather worked
and its gray flues meant
we were close to Papa’s home.
I remember wanting it
bad enough to create
the vision in the distance.
“I see Oscar Mayer,”
I’d say, and my brother
would say he saw it, too,
and my mother or father would
explain it was still an hour away.
Five minutes later,
my brother would insist
he could see it for sure,
and then I’d see it again,
and an hour would pass this way
until finally the dark smoke
rose on the horizon
and we’d shout in unison,
“I see Oscar Mayer!”
It still happens sometimes,
I want to arrive somewhere
so badly I can see it
though it isn’t there,
or more likely I have no idea
how the destination will appear and so
I declare myself far away,
though I don’t really know.
Decades ago the Madison
plant was closed,
though my brother still writes
sometimes to tell me he can see it.
It was easier then—
we knew exactly
what we were looking for,
knew it so well that
I almost think
I can see it from here.
In Fact, Her Life Depends on It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, hermit crab, hiding, poem, poetry on April 21, 2015| 4 Comments »
For most life on the planet, being hidden is the default condition.
—Michael Dickinson, biologist
The little girl is not like the hermit crab,
though both live by hiding, finding small
spaces where they can retreat and occasionally
poke out a well-armored claw for transit
or feeding. It’s natural to all living things,
this impulse to survive through concealment,
only this girl, who has tucked herself under the bed,
her soft body curled into itself,
this girl, though she pinches
at anything that draws close,
she desperately, urgently
wants to be found.
When I Was Five
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, death, poem, poetry on February 22, 2015| 3 Comments »
Whitish and filmy, their eyes clouded over,
the dead bluegills and croppies would float
to the top of the lake and catch in the seaweed.
I’d splash with my hands at the water’s surface
and make waves to push their rotting bodies
toward the neighbor’s pier.
And then my brother and I would play.
Death, then, was just something to push away,
certainly nothing that had anything to do with us.
I Felt So Safe There
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, poem, poetry, treasure on January 19, 2015| 4 Comments »
Beneath the stairs in the unfinished room
was a space just large enough
for a girl age six to crawl inside and hide.
I’d tack up a thin pink blanket to dampen any light
and crouch in the dim with my dolls, my pillow.
There was a hole in the concrete block
that I scraped and smoothed, with what?
I can’t recall. The hole was small, but it was sufficient
for holding my finest treasures: a round blue bead,
an arrowhead, a wedge of weeping willow bark
that worms had carved with squiggle marks.
Had I known then what I know now, I would have also
tucked in there a tiny scrap of paper with your name on it.
It Was Years Before I Told Anyone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, fear, nightmare, poem, poetry on November 15, 2014| 1 Comment »
I hear the horses, are there dozens? hundreds?
They are galloping toward my room.
I do not know how it is that they are in my home,
but if the riders find me, they will take me. Or kill me.
I know this.
I am alone. The top bunk of the bed where I am hiding
rattles from the pounding of their hooves.
Play dead, I think, though it is not so much a thought
as reflex. I slow the red race of my breath until it is brown
and dry, until my chest is still as stump,
until I’m a lump instead of a girl.
When the men on the horses arrive, I do not move.
I do not wince nor cry out when one pokes at my sheets
with something blunt and cold.
That’s the deadest girl I ever saw, he says.
I hear the feet of horses as they stomp and rake at the ground,
hear them strain and clench and rear. Then
a whinny, then a whirl, I can feel their breath,
and the horses ride off again.
Is this when I learn that the way to save myself
is to fully shut down? In the years to come,
I will find new ways to play dead. One is to starve.
One is to hide. One is to look so green and thriving
on the outside that no one could ever guess how brittle I am.
But those tactics are for later. For now, the girl in the bed
that is me and not me marvels that she is still alive.
It is a long time before she moves.
On the Shores of Lake Pewaukee
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, distance, Pewaukee, poem, poetry, sisters and brothers on August 14, 2013| 4 Comments »
Sitting beneath the weeping willow,
what did we know then of distance?
Everything was close then—
the Five-and-Dime, just a few blocks away,
where we could buy a roll of Necco wafers
for just ten cents and share them under the tree.
The great strings of leaves hanging about us,
a canopy, a room of green, a world where we could hide,
though there was nothing much to hide from.
Remember how we, even with our fingertips touching,
could not hug even half the tree, our cheeks
pressed into the thick gray bark in an effort to span something great.
There were days we would slip ourselves into the low split
in the enormous trunk and not come out for hours.
We would pull back the bark to where the trunk was smooth,
a warm brown, and there on the underside of the bark,
we uncovered the curvy carvings of beetles or worms.
We thought they were treasure maps, and spent days
deciphering the strange markings. Oh my brother,
those days were the treasure.
The lines to you now are long curves on a map
that stretches east from the Rockies to the Great Lakes.
I am reaching these grown up arms toward you
in an effort to span something great.
What did we know then of distance,
those green summer days?