1992

a deserted play pen
curious blue eyes blinking above the edge of our bed
a startled separation, an untangling of limbs
a sudden shift in priority
an adorable change of plans

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt 7 asked us to "write and capture humorous incidents related to love in a 5-line love poem called a tanka."

Psyche

Image from hkoppdelaney




A veil between want
and butterflies
is not the
curse
you would expect.
To look at perfect
through filmy longing
is safe--the danger
is in
beholding it
with your own
naked
eyes.

This is in response to the prompt for NaPoWriMo#6, which asked us to converse with an image or images. I looked at this striking photo from hkoppedelaney's flickr page, and this is what I heard.

She

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is the following: "Give poetry, as you write it, a name. Possibly a gender. And a personality." I tried, but couldn't name her.

She’s everything
in me that makes me afraid
and unsure that is

why I can’t name her
no, I can only claim her
and give her my best

without the fear she
induces I could never
step up I would stew

in my own juices
I love her because she makes
me brave
I love her because
she saves

The Un-Zen Art of Mothering Tulips

I should have a more Zen-like attitude
toward tulips.
But I can’t.
My attachment is too great.
I spend the last trimester of winter
wanting
and filled with fear
that this will be the year
that they don’t come.

And when they arrive
I waste our time.
I know too much
from past experience
with baby toes
and baby fingers
and baby feet
that such pink softness,
such perfect curves
and folds
are much too sweet.

The heartbreak
is that they seem
to stay still
and rest themselves against
my grateful breast.
Happy, so it seems, to be at rest.
But no matter how tight
I swaddle,
they stretch out,
open up,
scatter their petals
to the worldly ground.

So I would like to say
my time with them is
spent in the now.
But it isn’t.
A mother’s love is all about
attachment.
And I haven’t found
the will
to release
the wanting
yet.

This is for NaPoWriMo Prompt#4.

Good Friday, Still

image from wikimedia commons

So much is made
of the letting go
and the holding on
is dismissed
as dysfunctional
But
there comes a time
when to Love
is to hold on
to the splintering Wood
with all your might
and to bow down
and embrace
the wounding night

Possum Invasion

They crept across the kitchen floor
They slept in my kitchen dish towel drawer
They hissed at my poor pregnant feet
They visited my pregnant sleep
And in my dreams they did give rise
To a bassinet full
Of their blank, beady eyes
With slow insistence, they crawl on the earth
And insert themselves
Into my dreams of birth

The third prompt for NaPoWriMo was to write about what scares us most. Baby possums are the most terrifying creatures. When I was expecting my second child, my house was invaded by baby possums for a few nights in a row. My husband was working nights, and I wound up taking my 2-year-old son and sleeping at my in-laws because I couldn't figure out how they were getting in and I couldn't scare them away. I still get the creeps when I even think about them.

Regular White Paper

Regular white paper
gives away nothing,
sets no mood or tone.
It is as quiet as January,
essential as bone.
It is exacting.
It softens nothing.
Offers neither protection for prose
nor solace for syntax.
It terrifies the imagined
into real shape and size.
Unpitying, it pushes
the poem
toward new, unblinking eyes.

Today's napowrimo prompt asked us to visit acronymattic and use one of the acronyms for Read Write Poem (RWP) as inspiration for today's poem. Hence, I wrote a poem about regular white paper.