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.

Timbers reach
groaning sinews
reaching upward,
upwards.
gentle pebbles
blanketing the undergrowth
lacing knees.
And she grows.

Clouds, pale,
climbing over
silver havens:
powder blue.
the skies,
they climb, up to
billowing suns.
And she grows.

Strangers pass
each other glances,
blackened ravens
feast on dry bread
together, they eat,
feasting.
And she grows.

An old woman
knits her last line
pearl, hook
pearl, hook.
a gift for an old friend.
remembering the first time.
recalling.
And she grows.

A fist opens,
then closes.
clench, reach
touch, lean.
change falling
through worn fingers.
they’re reaching.
And she grows.

A sparrow is born.
nestled in a hanging basket
on a patio, grey.
it takes its first flight
falling thirteen leagues
down,
down
to flight.
he’s soaring.
And she grows.

A mother’s hands
crawl, trembling…
around newborn skin.
she watches:
almond eyes growing
wide with wonder,
searching.
giving name to her world.
And she grows.

::::

Life is full. I am happy. Madeleine is the joy and wonder of our life.

Blank page.

Sometimes I greet you, trembling.
you are an honest friend.

You demand nothing and everything of me.
you moor me. wait on me.

Anne Lamott reminds me that
‘Writing is an extraordinary patience…
it begins in the dark.’

So, here I sit, oh darkness, fumbling.

Lend me your hand.

There are poems that I fumble through and poems I receive. This one was the latter:

Expectancy

Me, at nine months. Photo credit: Avital Kline.

You, my child.

your hands, as webs,
reach out to touch my insides.
“mommy, i am here.”

you knit my womb and heart
together with strings.
your smile already my companion.

angel,
you speak to me through your rumblings,
coursing blood, water, tears
out from my fingertips.

:::  read the rest of the poem here. published last week in catapult magazine.

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.

Morning breaks
with a gentle haze
lifting of fingers - giant -
combing over earth’s
warm touch,
spinning.

early risers take
their first stretch -
reaching out to loved one,
then, out to coffee,
shower, toast and shoelaces.

the day begins
again.

a marvel that
this green earth keeps
spinning all of these
millennia…
still turning.
as if someone willed
it. willed a new day.

then, surely, there must be
purpose in this new sun.
the dawning. the seasons?

how Fall quietly bows to
Winter’s jealous fingers.

- November 20, 2009 :: 5 a.m.

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

“When you write, it’s a much more crystalline, compressed version of the voice you think with - though not the one you speak with. I think your writing voice is your laser-guided missile. It’s the poetry part of you.” 

- Douglas Coupland (Coupland’s Next Generation, The Georgia Straight, September 17-24, 2009)