A Day of Grading Papers

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The Thaw

I posted this poem last year, but I'm posting it again, because it still speaks to me during this slow onslaught of spring.

The Thaw

It is not in the bleak midwinter
That I feel the cold
For when the darkness of the dimmest days swaddles me
I sleep.

The indirect angles of the sun’s rays
Soften the sharpness
Of each bare branch and brittle bough
And lull me
Into slumber.

It is not the dry, soft secretness of the snow
That breaks me
For it cushions all my senses
And sweeps me
Into numbness.

But the dreadful dripping of the icicles,
The slow softening
Of the once firm and frosty ground
Shakes me from slumber
And I awake.

It is the unraveling of so many layers,
The near-warmness,
The threatening thaw of winter’s end,
That finally chills me
Into a deep shiver.

The shards of sharp sunlight
Glare on the gray spots,
Expose the cracked skin, the crumbling ground,
The dead things long denied,
And I see.

It is when all is laid bare and brown,
That I am exposed,
Facing the unfrozen, the long untended,
I shudder unguarded
Against the certainty of spring.

Who is really pro-life, anyway?

The archbishop says no communion for Kathleen Sebelius. Will he also withhold Jesus from politicians who voted for the war in Iraq, causing thousands upon thousands of deaths? From those who are pro-death penalty? From those who would cut welfare benefits for mothers who did not have abortions? From those who think healthcare for God's children should remain a for-profit enterprise? Should those who would shut down the tent cities of poor and homeless citizens remain in full communion? Does a "pro-life" position give one a free pass on all other life issues? Come to think of it, can we truly call such politicians pro-life at all? I'm just asking. Let's keep asking.

Cravings

I've been making a concerted effort to eat healthy, which means making some big changes regarding my relationship with food. I've been told by others who have walked this path before me that soon, my taste buds will change and that I will no longer crave the sweet foods that I love. Well, I'm not sure if that's ever going to happen to me. I find myself dreaming about donuts. Seriously. I have eaten maple bars in my dreams for the last three nights. And don't even get me started on my cheesecake dreams. During the day, I may long for forbidden foods, but at night, they haunt my dreams. So, in an effort to get them out of my system and in response to readwritepoem's topic of the week, here is my ode to maple bars:

Donut Dreams

I like to see them
lined up like toy
soldiers or a band
on parade day:
rows and rows,
columns and columns
of processed pleasure.
Then my eyes pace
back and forth as
I inspect the troops.
I skip over the sloppy,
careless quadrilaterals
with spotty frosting
and choose only the
responsible bars
dressed in thick,
evenly applied
maple uniforms,
tops gleaming,
ready for duty--
to be chewed
alive and to die
somewhere on
my stomach
or my thighs.

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Drunk winter gives spring the middle finger

(from KHQ.com)

When snow comes in March,
Drunk winter belches, knows it’s
Almost closing time

There’s nothing worse than
The guest who stumbles, gets sick
All over his shoes

My boy

(Mother and Child by Mary Cassat)

The other night, my ten-year-old son was in distress and needed to sit in my lap. I say needed because lap-sitting is not something that ten-year-old boys typically want to do. He was overwhelmed with fourth grade stress. “I can’t take it anymore,” he sobbed. I looked at his watery face and invited him on to my lap. To my surprise, he climbed on up and curled up into a ball, which is no easy task—he is nearly five feet tall, all arms and legs.

As he poured out his worries, I found myself stroking his hair and cheek, both of which felt almost as soft and smooth as they did when he was a baby. I watched with wonder as my motherly ministrations slowly began to soothe him. I held his hand, caressed his face, buried my nose in his hair, and told him that together, we would figure things out. After a while, he began to breathe more slowly and he relaxed the scrunched up muscles around his eyes and jaw.

I was overwhelmed with tenderness, as most mothers are when they see their children of any age crying. And that old feeling of wanting to fix everything for him came charging up inside of me. He is like me in so many ways. He holds high expectations for himself and fears disappointing people. He worries himself into knots, and hates being compared to others for fear of not measuring up.

It is so easy for my 40-year-old self to forget how stressful and overwhelming life could be when I was 10. My baby boy and I are not happy-go-lucky people. We sometimes need help putting things into perspective and managing our worries. So, I know that some of the tenderness I felt that night came from the realization that I was looking in a mirror.

But I was feeling another overwhelming emotion as well: gratitude. It has been a long, long time since I have held my crying child close to my body. A long time since my lap has been a place of healing and refuge. I experienced once again the most primitive of motherly instincts. My baby was hurting, and he needed my body to help him heal. And for a few moments, I was all he needed. I felt alive with mother-love and with the fierce, primal instinct to protect my child.

Is it wrong to enjoy such a moment as this? Is it perverse?

Of course, I wasn’t the answer to all of my son’s problems. I haven’t been since he was an infant. He had to go back into the fourth grade jungle the next day. I can’t follow him around and gather him into my arms whenever he starts to feel stressed. He doesn’t want that, and neither do I. But for a while last Wednesday, I was all he needed. He pressed his body close to mine so he could stop the universe for a while and just breathe.

And it was wonderful.

Psalm

You have shown me hard things but
It has been so hard for so long
I used to be strong, I think
But I am too tired now

I hurt all the way from my temples
To the tops of my shoulders
My eyes are frozen open
The sky presses down
On my head

Oh, please
I am so cold
Where is the fire
The burning bush
Even a single tongue to
Singe my hair and lick my crown

Didn’t you
Cup my face once
And kiss it with sparks of sun
I can hold the memory for but a breath
Till the ice returns to sting my lungs and
Now all I want is to rest and be warm and put down
The mirror you gave me I can’t look
Any longer I am done I just
Want you to save me
Again with your
Warm right
Hand