empty space
at the dinner table—
a flower without its petals
Posts Tagged ‘mother’
One Other Scene from Summer Camp
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dinner, flower, missing, mother, parent, poem, poetry on July 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »
When I Get Up to Leave My Daughter at Bedtime
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, bedtime, daughter, love, mother, poem, poetry on July 26, 2017| 2 Comments »
Don’t stop, she says,
and grabs my hand
and pulls it again
to her back. She
rakes it across
her skin and urges the nails
deeper in to scratch
some invisible itch
that she can’t reach herself.
In the thin light of vespers,
her face is more shadow
than shape. Still,
as my hand grazes
her skin, I make out
the place where her brow begins,
the jut of her nose, her angle of chin,
and she is no longer
nine years old, but some
timeless version of herself—
maybe thirty, or sixty,
or eighty-four, some year
when I am no longer
near to scratch
the unreachable spot.
The thought of it
makes me linger longer
than I normally do—
until her breathing changes,
until she is nine again,
her body curling
into her blanket,
her hand opening
into sleep.
.
Letter to the Doctors and Nurses in the ICU
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged doctor, gratitude, hospital, mother, nurse, poetry, prose poem on July 13, 2017| 6 Comments »
I know it’s your job, to monitor the heart rate as it rises, the blood pressure as it falls. I know the gray-haired woman in the bed is another set of numbers with a name you’ll forget. She’s my mother. She grows tomatoes on her porch and has a song to sing for every occasion. She loves side stroke and chocolate and Japanese art. She makes the best poached eggs, and she knows exactly how to scratch my head to lull me to sleep. I know it’s your job to find the clot. To bathe the wound. To ease the pain. Thank you. Thank you for your hands as they slip the needle into her arms, the arms that gather me when frightened or cold. Thank you for your feet as they run down the halls to examine her heart, her heart that holds so many. Thank you for your art as you puzzle the why of her body, her body that knows itself as a vessel for love and prayer. She is praying for you, even now, as I do, and though you are just doing your job, thank you.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mother, mother's day, poems, poetry on May 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »
To all of you who are mothers and all of you who have mothers, here are three poems to celebrate the most rewarding, incredible, challenging and primary relationship of our lives. I am super lucky to have an amazing mom, and Mom, I am continually in awe of you. The older my kids get, the more I wonder how you managed to parent with so much grace and joy and confidence.
These poems were previously published in Telluride Inside and Out a few years ago … I missed the deadline to send new poems this year! Thanks Sus, for finding some to print!
Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, love, mother, poem, poetry on May 7, 2017| 3 Comments »
My daughter and I go down to the river
in search of smooth, flat rocks for the garden,
and though we have many times
walked to the river in search of smooth, flat rocks,
I feel some odd joy today, as if the familiar path
is leading us somewhere we’ve never been,
as if anything could happen this afternoon—
and the heart, which likes to think
it knows something about loving,
forgets that we are doing chores
and finds it can love even more.
Even my hands feel new,
seem to revel in lifting
just because they can.
Faith
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, legacy, mother, mother's day, poem, poetry on May 8, 2016| 1 Comment »
Every morning when I was a girl
my mother would wake me
with song, the same lilting lyric
every dawn,
It’s going to be such a lovely day,
good morning, good morning I say.
It sounds too grand
to call it ceremony,
and she would have appeared
an unlikely celebrant
in her bathrobe and slippers,
but she infused
this daily ritual with prayer
and to this day I wake
certain that the world
will have beauty in it
and certain that I will find it—
this the most beautiful gift
any mother could give.
A Small Bouquet of Mother’s Day Poems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, mother's day, poem, poetry, son on May 4, 2016| 2 Comments »
This year for Mother’s Day, an offering of four poems published in Telluride Inside and Out–one for my mother, one for my son, one for my daughter (that invokes Mother Mary, too), and one about the day I quit motherhood.
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers–especially my own. I love you, mom!
