Thursday, May 8, 2014

Enough

Celebrating Mother's Day and the upcoming Listen to Your Mother show by re-posting some of my motherhood-themed poems this week...














My sixteen-year-old boy arrived at the hospital at 6:30
that Saturday morning to sit with me.
He sat between the window and my bed, his long fingers
curled around my own IV-taped hand.
And he was beautiful,
his lanky body bent over my bed, partially
shadowed by the window-framed sun.

He had gotten up so early just so he could sit with me
before his track and field meeting at school,
but I couldn’t move my morphine-heavy
eyes and lips to talk to him.
It seemed like I should say so much,
but I could only manage a few I-love-yous and
you-don’t-have-to-stays. But he did.

I kept drifting out and tripping up in my own
bad dreams and staples and tubes. I couldn’t
quite hold myself there with him. I kept wandering,
two nights back, to my mumbling pre-surgery prayers.
And I realized I could have done better.
Instead of my weak now-and-at-the-hour-of-our-deaths
and acts of contrition, I should have just said,

Look Lord, Here Lord, I made this boy.
And that would have been enough.

Waters

Celebrating Mother's Day and the upcoming Listen to Your Mother show by re-posting some of my motherhood-themed poems this week...














I wanted to say
When I saw
Your blue eyes brim
That the waters
That flood so fast
And rush past your lashes
Are the same ones
That spill from mine
That they come
From the same stream
Of love and regret
Of grasp and release
Of swell and stab
Are the same tides
Of contracting and pushing
Of me and other
That clean
And then roil
The bonds
Between child
And mother

Monday, May 5, 2014

Motherhood on My Mind

As I prepare for the Listen to Your Mother Spokane dress rehearsal tonight, and look forward to spending Mother's Day 2014 with my mom (for the first time in 10 years!) and all three of my sons, I definitely have Motherhood on my mind.  I think this week on the blog I will re-share some of my motherhood-related poems from the past. Let's start with this one:


Origins

My earliest world is
One of shapes and feelings
An awareness that
Everything in that little
Apartment is everything

Daddy is working late
Something called swing shift
I am eating chicken pot pie
And following her movements
With my young eyes

She is busy
I think she is folding
Laundry and carrying
Inside her what will
Be my little brother

She is always somewhere
Within reach
There is a cord that ties
I am for her
And she is for me

Together 
We are 
Complete