Category — Poetry

:: This post appears on the After Hours blog today. 

Do one thing every day that scares you. - Eleanor Roosevelt, US diplomat & reformer (1884 – 1962)

It’s a quote I’ve been quick to recite but slow to practice. Except for last night when I stepped up to the microphone for the very first time and read some of my poetry aloud to a room of perfect strangers. Some of them fairly famous strangers. 

I was sure I read too fast. I stood at the podium wishing I’d edited just a little bit more. I fumbled over a line. My palms were sweaty.

I felt utterly alive. 

I sat down. Diane Tucker stood up. Her words flew. Lines: weighty, pressing, playful. Not one of them hitting the floor. It made me want to get up a hundred times more so I could read like her. One day. 

When was the last time you chose to do something that scared you?

by Joy Harjo

I’m not afraid of love
or its consequence of light.

It’s not easy to say this
or anything when my entrails
dangle between paradise
and fear.

I am ashamed
I never had the words
to carry a friend from her death
to the stars
correctly.

Or the words to keep
my people safe
from drought
or gunshot.

The stars who were created by words
are circling over this house
formed of calcium, of blood–

this house
in danger of being torn apart
by stones of fear.

If these words can do anything
I say bless this house
with stars.

Transfix us with love.

:::

This is the first poem we read on day one of my poetry workshop. I love the lines: “I say bless this house with stars.” They inspired a poem of my own which I’ll post soon.

Her fingers wrap around mine like a chord. Limbs darting up to tug at my linen, cotton billows, reaching out to declare: “You are mine.” Tenacious, yet layered with a heart like cream, Madeleine steals frames from faces in an instant. Translucent glass beads scattered about the floor save her from topples as she devours them with her finger folds. Snowy flesh. She is sitting better and better every day. At dawn each morning Daddy awakes to spend sleepy hours with her while I try and catch up from night waking. Enfolding one another in the day’s first light. This is our love.

This afternoon, nestled on the calm shore of Burnaby’s Deer Lake, I begin my first poetry class. I am both nervous and excited, after all it’s my first day of ’school.’

I’ve missed this feeling.

Star Song

by Luci Shaw, from WinterSong 146

We have been having
epiphanies, like suns,
all this year long.
And now, at its close
when the planets
are shining through frost,
radiance runs
like music in the bones,
and the heart keeps rising
at the sound of any song.

Old magic flowing
the calling of bells,
round high and clear,
flying and falling,
re-sounding the death knell
of our old year,
the new appearing
of Christ, our Morning Star.

Now burst!
all our bell throats.
Toll!
every clapper tongue.
Stun the still night!
Jesus himself gleams through
our high heart notes
(it is no fable).
It is he whose light glistens in each song sung
and in all of us
in the true coming
together again
at the stable: shepherds,
sages, his women and men,
common and faithful,
wealthy and wise,
with carillon hearts
and, suddenly,
stars in our eyes.

Flood

I woke to a voice within the room. perhaps.
The room itself: “You’re wasting this life
expecting disappointment.”
I packed my bag in the night
and peered in its leather belly
to count the essentials.
Nothing is essential.
To the east, the flood has begun.
Men call to each other on the water
for the comfort of voices.
Love surprises us.
It ends.

Eliza Griswold

Dear One,

I feel like I am in a holding pattern. Waiting for you. Waiting to see your face, smooth as milk. Your almond eyes, bright as the sunset, blue.

The heat is unbearable. I spend my days finding creative ways to escape swollen ankles, upset stomach, sweaty brow.

I wish we were together, you and I. Sitting by water’s edge. My feet dipped in the shore. You, nursing. I long to know you, my dear one. The longing calls out from the bowels, deep. I feel my womb, groaning, to birth you into the world. The thought of it calls me to tears.

Believe me Dear, I have all the love in the world for you. Your eyes will be my treasure, forever. I fear ever letting you go, ever letting the world reach out its blackened hands to touch you.

I imagine your tiny fingers curled, clasping my pinky. Your gentle eyes combing my face. Pure joy. I long to meet such innocence. To meet you, my dear one. Our angel.

We are reaching out our hands. Won’t you come to meet us?

Love Mama

– July 30, 2009

Madeleine wakes with a stumble of pure joy. All squeals and wild giggles. Face ablaze with laughter, peering through whispers of moonlight. A toothless flurry of smiles, all for me. Mama, I see you…

I hear of newborn babies sleeping through the night and for a moment my mind flickers with jealousy, but the picture of my daughter’s saucer eyes eclipses the emotion. My heart crests. A gentle ache. Darling, I see you…

It’s our moment. This 3 AM love.

A mother lives her life in bursts, or as the book I’m reading aptly puts it, “Between Interruptions.”

I write in between the time Madeleine dozes off and starts rooting around for her next meal. These moments are few, and enormously treasured. 

Madeleine and my first foray into the world was to Starbucks. It was on Day 9. A bright shining day. I read the newspaper for the first time since her birth. This past week she hit the three week milestone and we went to see the Midwife. She clocked in at 11 lb 3 oz. On the way there I filed my nails as Daddy drove. This weekend we embarked on our first adventure, to Victoria, in the safe company of Michael’s parents and the welcoming arms of Island friends. On the ferry deck, as Madeleine slept nestled in a carrier on my chest, I penned these lines:

Forest underfoot, out of sight
ribbons of saltwater taffy
streaming like a
blanket
closing in over
newborn skin.
winds dance over orcas backs
a dozen lazy dominos
waltzing like stars.

Your face is an orbit. Pursed lips, supple skin. Bright eyes, like moons. A constellation.

You are a little ship, a face like an ocean cresting. Raven hair and blue eyes the size of boulders. 

I swim in your sea from day’s break to day’s end. You are my life’s greatest treasure. Lying beside you these first days has felt like a rebirth. Your soul, your face, every inch of you speaks pure. Your loveliness outshines the rainbow that nestled itself outside our window yesterday. I would spend the rest of my days gazing at your face if the world, the Lord, would allow. Instead I will take my moments, store them in my heart like gold, and watch you grow, grow, grow up into heaven, out into the world.