Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, family, love, summer on June 26, 2020| 5 Comments »
We ride on the rusty old bikes
in the swelter of June,
legs pumping, waving at strangers,
the wind making a kite
of our laughter—
The eight-year-old version of me
would never believe
about how happy we are—
she’s still ratting her brother out
to the recess guard.
But here we are, like two
young kids, playing in summer—
sticky hands and suntanned arms,
the years an ocean,
our love a boat.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family on June 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, family, love, musical, sister, theater on February 1, 2020| 1 Comment »
And again tonight, despite injustice and hatred,
Jean Valjean learns to love. And again tonight,
in the face of fear and prejudice, he finds kindness.
And again tonight, I weep as he nears his death.
I couldn’t say for whom I am weeping—for him,
for the girl he adopted, for the mother who died,
for the empty chairs, for the whole cast
who remind me too much of the world we live in.
For myself, of course, and my longing to do
what is right. But more than anything, I weep
with the memory of watching this very same scene
thirty years ago, sitting beside my brother,
both of us baptized in tears as Fontine and Eponine
sing behind Valjean, reminding him it is no small miracle
to love someone. I couldn’t have known then
how this would be the memory I’d return to again
and again when I think of my brother. There we are,
young and full of competing ideals, holding each other,
laughing through our crying, ready to meet the world
and each other tear-stained and open to news of grace.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cinderella, family, magic, new year's eve, parents, poem, poetry on January 29, 2019| 4 Comments »
We sat around the oval kitchen table
and made hats out of ribbons
and paper plates, and we piled them high
with golden grapes and fake flowers.
I remember thinking how great, how magic it was
that something we’d use for dinner
transformed into something so elegant.
Today I stared hard at a paper plate,
as if I could return to that state of delight
and easy grace. Was this how Cinderella felt
when she gazed at the pumpkin the day
after the ball? Wondering if the magic
happened at all? Weighing the shape
of reality against her dream?
Yes, I tell myself, it was real,
the glittering fruit, the beauty I felt,
the laughter around the table.
And it was a dream, the way my parents
made it seem as if we had it all.
And when the clock struck midnight,
none of the magic left at all.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, death, family, grief, loss, poem, poetry, sister on June 1, 2018| 3 Comments »
There was a time when I’d pull his hair out
if he sat too close to me on the couch.
Now, I curl into his right side,
lean my head on his shoulder,
feel the trembling of his chest
as he weeps. How good it feels
to be close to him as we grieve.
How familiar, the shape of his head,
the heft of his hand as he reaches for mine.
How deeply right, this leaning
into sorrow together.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, father, fireman, hero, life, poem, poetry on February 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »
for Billy Miller, remembering events on January 4, 2012
When the man pulled my father
from the icy waters of Lake Michigan,
he did not know years later my step-daughter
would need someone to buy her a sweater
so she would feel nurtured, did not know
that my son would need someone
to make a mosaic with him so that he
could feel loved, did not know
that my daughter would need
someone to tell her that she
was beautiful. When the man
pulled my father out of the water—
my dad had been fishing alone—
that off-duty fireman couldn’t have known
that years later this very daughter
would sit beside her father and hold his hand
and weep at the simple gift
of being able to hold his hand.
The fireman was doing what he knew to do—
to rush to the person in need of help.
He didn’t think then of the other lives
blessed by the man. Did not think
of the other lives he blessed with his hands
when he chose to try, though the odds
of saving the man were low.
He knew only to reach.
Years later, my mother still sleeps
beside the man that was pulled
from the winter lake.
Give us hands that know to reach
for each other—stranger, neighbor,
friend. Give us hands that unthinkingly
choose to save the family
we’ve never met.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, missing, poem, poetry, thanksgiving on November 25, 2017| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, illness, poem, poetry, support on July 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, creche, family, parenting, poem, poetry on December 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »
In the crèche arranged on the piano each Christmas,
the clay face of the virgin mother is eternally beaming
at the miracle child in his swaddling clothes,
and the miracle child is sleeping, always peacefully sleeping,
no matter how loudly my son pretends he’s a race car, no matter
how many people are laughing in the kitchen.
And Joseph, he is looking out across the piano
as if staring through the stable, staring through centuries,
perhaps, as if he can already see the tables upended
in the temple, can already smell the sweetness
of shared loaves and the pungency of fish, can hear
Mary weeping, or is it me he hears, playing piano
and singing about the hopes and fears of all the years,
then pausing to ask my children not to argue, please,
and to use their kindest voices with each other—and they
continue to bicker. Meanwhile the shepherd and his sheep
gaze up at the crack in the wall in awe, as if there were stars there,
stars brightly shining, and yonder, breaking, a new and glorious morn.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, division, family, poem, poetry, unity on November 10, 2016| 6 Comments »
These, too, are your family,
any who would build a wall,
any who would throw a stone.
The other is your sister,
your brother, your mother.
Pick up the stones
and build fire circles
where everyone’s voice
can be heard.
Tear down the walls
and use the debris
to build bridges.
Tattoo these words
on your hands,
on your tongue:
we are all in this
together.
