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Posts Tagged ‘parenting’

The Last Parent Teacher Conferences

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 3, 2026| 2 Comments »


 
 
If I were like Suzanne Valadon,
fearlessly painting self-portraits as I age,
I would paint this moment
when I wander the high school halls
between teacher conferences, this moment
when I’m so full of love for the girl
who will graduate this spring
that I’m weeping and laughing
beside yellow lockers and posters
for basketball games. Gratefulness
can break a heart open as easily as sorrow.
In fact, the tear as it reaches the curve
of my lips, I think it would fill the whole frame.

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One Waiting for College Admissions

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 12, 2025| 2 Comments »


after Hokusai
 
I fall asleep, wake,
fall asleep, wake, meanwhile
the sapling becomes a great spruce

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When I say, I miss you

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 24, 2025| 2 Comments »


 
 
I mean there’s a silence
here where your voice should be,
an emptiness beside me
where your warmth is not.
I mean your cereal bowl
is not in the sink.
No scent of lavender candles
burning in your room.
I might say, I miss you,
but it’s code
for I miss who I am
when you are here.
Miss giggling until we fall
on the floor. Miss
the way my fingers
pull through your hair.
Miss holding your feet
while you sit in a chair—
that strange thing
that only we do.
I say, I miss you,
but I mean I miss
you humming the Eagles
while making chia seed pudding.
I miss the here of your hand
in my hand. I miss the here
of your feet on the floor,
I miss the here of your eyes.
The here of your sneeze.
The here, right here, of your sigh.
 

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One Missed Opportunity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 13, 2025| 3 Comments »

that would have been a great time
for me to tell you I love you,
that time when I jabbered on
about the shapes of glasses,
about the weather, the color of the tile

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Tale of Two Moments

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 24, 2025| 2 Comments »



Holding my girl
on the couch,
came a moment
so tender because
I remembered
I will die—
what grace when,
minutes later,
lost in the bliss
of her warmth,
came a moment
so tender because
I forgot.

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Putting My Daughter on the Plane to Guatemala

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 12, 2024| 9 Comments »


 
 
I would like to say I wasn’t afraid,
but I was. I know too well how a plane
can fall from the sky. How terrible
 
things happen to innocent people.
How even when we try our hardest
to keep others safe, they can die.
 
Driving toward home, I was a snail
without its shell, a seed without its husk,
a woman alone in the dark with her fear.
 
I remember thinking if I needed to,
I could live through any future disaster,
even my worst nightmare.
 
But what I really needed was
to live in that very moment.
The more I was right where I was,
 
the more I felt the mystery around
and inside me, swirling until I was bigger
somehow, no less afraid but more spacious,
 
And though the world did not comfort me,
I felt myself soften as I flowed toward
the inevitable—flowed the way a river flows,
 
moved the way the wind moves,
grew the way a woman grows
when she meets the world that is here.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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The Promise

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 22, 2024| 14 Comments »

 

 
We need to be light for one another.
                  —Parker Palmer
 
 
I will be your candle,
your headlamp,
your fireworks, your fire.
Your light bulb,
your lantern, your sunshine,
your flare.
And your lightning strike.
Your neon sign.
Your firefly. Your filament.
Your glowworm. Your star.
Your laser. Your torch.
Your flamethrower. Your spark.
I remember the exact
dark moment I knew
I would devote my life
to being your black light,
your back light,
your flashlight,
your comet, your match.
Your moon. Your ember.
Your pulsar. Your lamp.
Your bioluminescent wave.
Your strobe. Your ember.
Your flame. Your blaze.

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Song of the Spool

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 8, 2024| 4 Comments »

for Vivian
 
 
I want to love you
the way the spool
loves the yarn.
For a time, the spool
gives the yarn shape
before the yarn becomes
its own beautiful form—
a sweater, a sock, a blanket,
something warm,
perhaps soft.
No one thinks then
of the work of the spool.
There is a part of me,
who does not want
to be forgotten.
But I know what it’s like
to be close to you,
wrapped in you,
then slowly spun out
as I let you go.
There’s more joy
in being useful
than I could have known,
bittersweet joy in the unwinding,
true joy in watching you
become more yourself,
true joy in watching you grow.

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An Autumn Day Perfect for Getting Things Done, But

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 9, 2023| 13 Comments »

When you
say,

Please don’t
go,

the day
weaves

a nest
from

the strands
of

tenderness
in your

words, and
I,

squirrel-like, curl
deep

into their
mossy

warmth. I
cache

the sweetness
of

quietly snuggling.
Come

winter, these
seeds

of autumn
gentleness

will nourish
me.

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From Too Far Away

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2023| 12 Comments »


To hold you the way
the shore holds
the river, this is how
I want to hold you—
that present, the way
skin holds the sweet
peach, the way lungs hold
air—that tender, that
gentle, that tight. Instead,
I hold you now
the way sky holds clouds—
too spacious, too distant,
too far, far away.
I want whisper near, breath
to ear, nigh as lullaby, want
cradle close, praise
close, soothe close, love
close, as if touch could make
everything right, want dream
close, promise close, close
as prayer, close as your
tear to my cheek.

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