Did you know, she says,
that dolphins will help
an injured animal
reach the surface so it can breathe?
She is six, and she shares
this new knowledge with anyone
she meets—a teacher, a waitress,
a woman in the airport, a man
in line at the store.
Perhaps she is already
somehow aware
that every one of us
is in treacherous waters
in need of a little nudge
from beneath that guides us
to emerge.
Posts Tagged ‘mothering’
From the Pod
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dolphin, help, mothering, poem, poetry on April 20, 2015| 3 Comments »
Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged colic, love, mothering, poem, poetry on January 16, 2015| 6 Comments »
Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky.
—Chippewa, translated by Robert Bly
You have to love your baby.
I didn’t. Not the mornings
he woke, the wails already trembling
on his tiny rose lips. Not the twisting
and stiffening of his perfectly
muscled limbs. Not his face staining red
as he screamed in my arms.
Not the hours, not the days, not the
weeks nor months of bouncing
and rocking and swaying and swaddling.
I wanted to make it stop. I wanted
a different child, one that would
giggle and babble and gurgle and coo
and smile. It was only after I lost
my every hope and forgot my
last expectation that love came in
with its strong lungs and ferocious will
and it’s broken dreams, it arrived
looking only like the child I held,
not at all like the child I thought I wanted.
Though I Have Never Seen The Pieta in Person, It Touches Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Michelangelo, mothering, ownership, Pieta, poem, poetry on November 18, 2014| 3 Comments »
It is not so much the look on Mary’s face,
as if she is yet untouched by the tragedy.
It is not so much the diagonal drape
of the dead Christ’s arm, nor the empty folds
of the virgin’s dress. It’s the name that catches me,
Michelangelo Buonarroti, chiseled in the sash
that runs between Mary’s breasts, as if to say,
“This is my work, and it is good.”
Oh Mary, holding your son, dead,
what do you know about wanting to own something
that cannot be owned? Just this morning
my own six-year-old girl curled into my lap
and reached up with her right hand to clasp
my shirt in her fist. You never ever go, she said,
sprawling across me, loaning me all of her weight.
I love to find my signature in this girl—
the greenish gray color of her eyes,
the way she loves to read. The color of her skin,
her silly side. Mary, how did you do it, say goodbye?
I run my hands over the startling muscles of her legs,
trace the shape of her jaw, the length of her neck.
Oh the body, how it loves to touch, oh the soul, how
it blossoms by letting go. And the ego, oh how it wants
to say, this is mine, this is mine,
though the mind knows the way that all things go—
even the glass surrounding the Carrara marble,
even the marble, the cathedral, the square.
Even the girl, who leaps up to chase the cat.
Even her mother retelling the story of longing
and love and fear. Even the story itself.
Mother’s Day Poems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother's day, mothering, poem, poetry, Telluride Inside and Out on May 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »
For all the mothers–two poems about mothering. One for my mother in specific, the other for all of us. Happy Mother’s Day, and I say that knowing that it is not always happy. Still, there are so many blessings on this path of being both daughter and mother.
Daily Round
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chores, daily life, mothering, poem, poetry on July 6, 2013| 1 Comment »
Slowly
the
mower
the
woman
behind
it
and
slower
the
hoer
the
woman
who
holds
it
and
near
still
the
holder
of
he
who
is crying
and
nearer
his
whisper
her
shudder
his
why-
ing.
Wouldn’t It Be Funny
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, children, gardening, mothering, poem, poetry, wholeness on May 29, 2013| 2 Comments »
It is hard to not resent the ants
and grasshoppers, even though
they are doing the only thing
their bodies know how to do—
to eat what is green as they find it.
They do not know that these greens
are the first pea shoots, that if only
they waited another week or two
there would be thousands more leaves
for the eating and still enough left
for the peas to mature.
But no, they take the first green,
and now in the row against the fence
there are long stretches of nothing
but broken stems and empty earth.
Just today my son asked me
what a mosaic was, and I told him
it was the act of making art
out of broken bits of things.
Wouldn’t it be funny, he said,
if the whole world broke and
we made a mosaic from what was left.
My whole life I have clung
to some idea that the world
could be more whole than it is,
and then today, a twist.
I’m not saying I don’t resent
the ants, the grasshoppers
and their wake of fruitlessness.
I’m just seeing that everything’s broken.
And then there’s the art of the mess.
Some Call it Noise
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, mothering, music, piano, poem, poetry, rhythm, sound on May 21, 2013| 5 Comments »
“Mom,” he says,
“I love this note.”
I sit beside my boy
on the bench
and I say, “It’s a D,
a low D.”
And he plays
the white key
again and again
and again and
again with animal
ferocity. “Can you find
another D?” I ask,
and he finds another,
to my delight, and another
and another and another.
Then he plays the Ds
with two hands—
one a bass and one
a thrumming, heavy beat.
Again, again,
again, again,
his body is a-thrill
with it. “I love this note,”
he says again,
his eyes electric,
wild with tone,
“Mom”, he says,
“will you write
this down?
Please mom,”
he begs, as he
hammers the Ds
with an almost
violent grace.
While he sleeps,
I draw the darksome notes
in his rhythmic trance
on two otherwise empty staves.
The notes are the Union
Pacific westbound;
and they are the boy,
his feet eager as he pounds
across the field;
and they are the railing
of hail in the orchard;
and they are the hands
of a boy who is banging
out his rampant joy, freed
from a language
dipped in lead,
God, he’s free,
he is pushing all of himself
into D; and they are
the boulders
tumbled by snowmelt,
thundering along
the full riverbed;
the sound of the heart
when it beats for no reason
except that it
was made to beat.
Vivian Learns Present Progressive
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.
Though the King Might Not Agree
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, mothering, poem, poetry, rumplestiltskin, value on May 7, 2013| 3 Comments »
All this must be spun tonight. —The Brothers Grimm
She does not care
that the gems
are not real.
She wears
the necklace
and feels beautiful.
She does not care
that the shoes
are not true glass slippers.
In the low angled sun
she slips across
the scuffed maple floors
and dances in clear plastic shoes
bought on sale at Target
to music that only she can hear.
She hums and twirls
in the dimming light.
She is not like
the miller’s daughter.
She knows how,
all by herself,
to spin what is useless
and cheap
into gold.
How We Try to Shape Things
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, empowerment, letting go, mothering, poem, poetry on May 5, 2013| 2 Comments »
There are no arms
on the woman in the picture,
the one my daughter
drew and handed to me,
saying, “Mommy, this is you.”
She was so proud, her eyes
so alive, and the green crayon lines
show a woman with long hair,
long legs and a big lopsided smile.
And no arms.
It is not that I mind being elbowless,
but my friend Jack once told me
that children who draw people with no arms
are disempowered, and there
are studies to prove it, he said,
how their lack of agency
lasts into adulthood.
I want to show her, “Here,
darling, here is where the arms go.”
But instead I say, “The green lines
look strong. And her smile
makes me smile.” I kiss her,
and tell her thank you,
and she squeezes me, her two small
arms so strong, I notice, even when
they let me go.