Day 12: Piety in Springtime*

The piety tree is legendary

for its beauty,

unfortunately cultivated primarily for the same –

the fruits of piety are both tart and sweet,

but so few seem to taste them,

preferring instead piety’s showy petals

and bright green leaves.

Piety is found

in almost every part of the country,

its flowers prized for elegance

and likened to the suffering

of Christ – but

who among the many

who adore piety in springtime

find themselves still pious

in the fall?

*This post was in response to the day's prompt from napowrimo.net, which was to write a "replacement poem" - replacing a tangible noun with an intangible one. I chose to replace "dogwood" with "piety."

Day 11: Looking Forward

I wonder when (I hope not if) I will stop

counting the stages of motherhood by

how much I can accomplish during the day

and how much sleep I get (or not) at night.

When I will cease looking forward

in exhausted anticipation

to things like nighttime potty training,

preschool, getting yourself dressed,

and a time when all of the characters

in all of your story books are not,

by sheer force of your will,

named “Dada.”

When I can cease to hover

and let you climb the jungle gym alone;

when “I can’t hear you anymore”

is no longer cause to run and find you

because you’re surely up to something;

when I can sleep in on Saturday morning

because it’s the weekend, and you understand.

By that time, of course, I will look back and wonder

why I was looking forward all those years.

Day 10: Free Verse

One of these days, I think,

I am going to write a poem

with structure –

a sestina, perhaps, or

maybe a villanelle –

something with rhyme or repetition,

something recognizable and

fully formed.

But this requires discipline,

and I have none of that in April

(are you kidding me?)

when I cannot help but heed

the garden’s constant call –

dismantle here, build there, sow these seeds

just so, and all day

bear witness to the glorious riot of springtime.

How can I write a poem with form

when the world is formed anew each day,

each moment?

There is no rhyme or reason to springtime,

certainly no repetition –

only loosely orchestrated chaos, forming itself

(most un-subtly, and in a cornucopia of colors,

sounds, smells, textures)

into free verse.

Day 9: Waiting for April

To wake each day expecting

to find a poem in it, like a treasure:

this is April.

The world is so wide open

And my heart is as big as the sea.

Poetry rises and falls ceaselessly within me,

Tumbling the words, softening the rough edges.

I once found a driftwood question mark on the beach,

and my mother used to keep a jar on the windowsill filled

with brightly colored glass, smooth

and polished by time and waves,

washed ashore when the time was right

(or thrown back to sea if it wasn’t).

These words have always been there, just

waiting for April.

Day 8: Untitled

It’s an interesting journey,

having your life turned upside-down.

Walking on the ceiling

is about as difficult as it looks,

tiptoeing around the dusty chandeliers

in our fancy house on the hill, somehow emptier now

than it was, though no physical objects

have been removed. Not yet.

Sure, there was the empty nest,

but this is a bigger hole, one whose depth

I sense most keenly

when you sit at the breakfast table

and read the paper in silence.

I peek over your shoulder

from my vantage point near the light fixture –

it’s 1985. There is a photograph.

You’re wearing a white dress, standing beside

a clean shaven beanpole that looks

something like me.

We were so present then,

no emptiness, only the great expectancy

worn so freely (and treated so carelessly)

by the young and hopeful.

It’s time to fold that paper now,

to place it carefully in an album

that will be kept because it should be,

but never opened because it shouldn’t,

until many years have passed

and I have come down from the ceiling

to share a right-side-up breakfast

with the ones I love.

Day 7: You, Two

When you wake in the morning, you will be two

(provided you sleep past 5:44 a.m., which is no guarantee).

It will be, for the most part, an ordinary day –

We’ll have morning milk and stories,

you will play while I make breakfast, and then make a mess of the same,

which I will dutifully clean.

We’ll walk to the pool for swim lessons and tell everyone we meet

that it’s your birthday. Will you know the difference?

The afternoon will, in all likelihood, be spent in the garden –

You’re such a good helper

(even though we didn’t really need to water the basement window).

We’ll have a nice dinner, run you a warm bath,

and Daddy will put you to bed with your favorite songs.

And all the while it will be your birthday –

Imagine that!

I will remind you of this marvelous fact throughout the day,

periodically exclaiming, “Guess what, sweetie pops – you’re two!”

To which you will respond with a resounding: “TWO!”

(wondering why your mother keeps telling you this, as if it were important)

and continue with the all-important business of

being you

being two.

Day 6: Come Springtime

It’s springtime. The apple tree limb

still lies where it fell

last winter.

Mostly forgotten, given up for dead,

we’ll chip it when we have the time –

Too many other pressing things to do

in the garden this time of year.

But I pass it today, and pause.

There are leaves on the ends of

the twigs, blossoms stubbornly

sapping the stored life force from the limb,

disbelieving in death,

wanting so much just to bloom and bear fruit.

And I can’t help but wonder,

will I be like that when I die?

Stubbornly insisting

I still have life force in me,

raising my hands in frantic gesture to the living:

Wait, I’m still here, can’t you see me?

They will bury me regardless,

soil and water and stone will be

just enough to keep my memory alive.

But come springtime, I’ll show them.

I’ll be right there beneath the soil,

giving the daisies a leg up

into the light.