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.

Day 5: A Somewhat Addled Double Dactyl*

Piddleton puddleton

Poor Mr. Pemberton

Isn’t the sharpest of

Tools in the shed.

Laughing hysterically,

Alphanumerically

He counts his numbers from

Alpha to zed.

* If you're unfamiliar with the double dactyl form, check it out on Wikipedia.

Day 4: On Waking

I come slowly from sleep this morning –

Two steps forward, one step back –

The hungry murmurs of my son tugging me up,

The lull of my dreams drawing me down.

It’s the birds that break the tie,

Their insistently cheerful twittering scattering

The clouds of my mind like miniature feather dusters

Tickling my thoughts alive and suddenly, irreversibly:

I’m awake.

It’s not even dawn, my tired body protests

But weakly – just two years of this and already

I know I cannot win.

And so I rise,

Place one foot, then the other

Through soft, cool pajama legs,

Flap quietly down the hall in my slippers,

Squint at the thermostat,

Put the kettle on.

I don my best insistently cheerful smile

(Which I’ve borrowed from the birds, at least for now).

I open the door to my son’s room, still in blackness,

And draw the curtains on another day of motherhood.

Day 3: For Cass, Because It Is Quena's Birthday

I’ve read the advice:

Call your mother on your birthday;

It’s as much her day as yours.

So today,

Your birthday,

I am writing a poem for your mother.

Because you are beautiful,

Because you are strong,

Because you let yourself experience

Wonder, just as she does –

Because you love.

Because she, too,

Embodies all of these things.

And because I, too, know what it is

To bring a child into this world

On Resurrection Day.

Day 2: The Close of Day

After a day of doing

My mind still swirls with

The settling dust

Of crossed-off chores.

Perhaps a cup of tea

To slow myself

And welcome sleep.

Tomorrow comes early.