Our Mother

Our Mother

Who sits here in this kitchen with me

Your name is Love

You bring new life

You spark new hope

And you are weaving together heaven and earth.

Fill our bellies and our souls today,

Help us to love our sisters and brothers

With the same love you lavish on us,

The love we all need and want.

And send us out from this kitchen

To be the bearers of light, life, and hope

To a dark, hungry world

Because this food is too good not to share

This story begs to be told

And your glory never ends,

Amen.

exoskeletons

Ten thousand rocks, a dozen logs

and they are more than satisfied,

my wild crew.

Winter is kind today, 

our eyes squint at the sun-glared

Sound, happily harsh to our 

mole-ish faces, as we go

about our business 

disturbing crab families

in their sandy dens.

Two-inch patriarchs brandish 

tiny claws in our direction

as the women and children 

side-scurry to safety.

We are a family 

of mammoth tyrants 

at play, our lovely 

Saturday at the beach.

every day magic

Be a tourist in your city

Treat the children like guests

Love your husband like a stranger

Set the table for high tea 

Use your telephone voice

Notice our strange culture

Take vacations at the office

And make every effort to wonder

at the every day magic.

no quick fix

Too small, he moved too much,

each leaving wound

a spring tight in his chest,

hair-trigger snares 

like nightshade sown

into a fruited soul.

Then he turned five

and sprung a leak,

unwinding wounds we

hoped were healed,

now tripped and spilling

purple down his shirt.

We keep him still,

or try, by clumsy hand

to mind and tend

the tender places,

blindly pressing 

band-aids over broken bones.

sort it out

Her sturdy fingers move

the wooden blocks 

from bin to floor

and back to bin:

the industry of one

year olds, a crucial task.

It looks like play,

but watch her face:

intent. Intentional,

her focus broken

just for bursts

of brief delight:

The blue block fits

inside the red bin!

And she sees that

it is good.

 

This is her very work

and she will 

do it well

and long past

babyhood, this careful

sort. Good from

bad, in from out,

meaning from

nothing, created

from Creator.

So sort the bits now,

little sister,

sort it out.

Teach me again

to put things in

right order,

so to find 

the boundary lines,

like blocks and bins,

in all their

pleasant places.

Simeon

He was born
into the great silence -
nearly five hundred
years without a prophet,
but Simeon heard

the old voices.
Go to the temple,
they told him,
and the people laughed.
All but Anna, who
clasped her bony hand
around his wrist
when he passed by:
Today, she whispered.

Surely not them.
The road-weary carpenter
and his girlish bride,
tattered bundle clutched

tight to her chest.
Yes.

His feet moved unbidden,
hands took the warm passel
of rags and flesh
from the unsuspecting mother.
Holding the Child,

he heard himself say
the words
to all the songs
the silence could hold no more.

For Logan, from your aunt on the occasion of your birth

The midwife took a photo
of your cord
where it hung,
attached at the furthest
edge by
a scant few

precious vessels.
Strands of life,
they tell your story:
a tale of enough,
a braided rope of
love, joy, and plenty

far right of reason,
and smack in the middle
of God's good grace.

Bless you, boy!

Be graced, good son,
to cast your steadfast line
to sea, and catch
all those who need a love
that won't let go,
and know:

Your mother's thread,
the Father's hand,
the Spirit's breath
will hold you still.

to ethiopia with love

I rip the envelope
in the Walgreens parking lot,
flip through each photo
first quickly, then again
taking my time
while the van idles, until
the kids get restless
and it's time to move on.

I drive home distracted,
trying to see each image
through your eyes:
how will it feel to see
the child you lost at home
with me? He smiles.
Will you?

Tomorrow I will send them,
these frozen moments --
a birthday dinner,
his preschool portrait,
the first soccer game (he
scored three goals).
A month from now,
maybe two,
an old friend will walk
down a long red road,
greet you with three kisses,
and hand you a package.

You will see his face,
and yours, and ours.
I can't pretend to know
what you will feel;
I only pray you know
our love is for you too.

a pre-written retrospective on motherhood

She kept having children
perhaps because
they all began babies,
who lay down quietly in her lap.

Nestled skin to skin,
full satisfied by all
her body had to give,
she delighted to be
emptied into them.

And then they flew
too far to follow,
followed dreams and girls
down roads
she hadn't chosen.

Now the stairs and hallways
rattle memories,
silence louder than
their shouting ever was.

She sits by the un-smudged
window, hands in her
empty lap,
quietly
sad and satisfied
in all her fullness.

to nurse

To tend,
or worry over,
in the case of wounds.
At a hospital,

to do a job,
a shift,
to lift and turn,
to measure, prod
and watch.

Here, in this darkened
room at dawn
it is love.
To give my
self, be emptied
and then filled

by the round
of her cheek, the
grasp of her tiny
fingers,
her weight in my lap,
content.

all downhill from there

They arrived by
leaving
the only home
they knew, a dark
paradise
without hunger,
without want,
without fear.
This very space
not only shrank but
squeezed,
pressed,
expelled,
ejected them
through a bath
of blood and water,
into a world of
harsh light,
brutal noise,
haunting hunger,
endless need.
Years later we
will fret over
a swat on the rear,
a scraped knee
the wrong soccer coach.
As if we had some
power to shield,
as if the bubble
ever stays intact,
as if the trauma
doesn't start with birth.

stranger son

I loved a boy
with an easy smile,
an eager heart,
an aim to please.
For seven years
I knew his face,
and he knew mine -
we were the same,
or so it seemed.

I lost that boy,
I don't know where,
or how, I only
know he's gone.
He's here, but not
the boy I loved,
and now my work
is just to love
another

(him).

He wears the face
of the boy I loved,
the easy boy,
and I forget --

Oh, let me not forget!

To love this boy
with the grimace face,
the angry fist,
the fearful heart:
we're still the same,
beloved, still.

a thousand winters for this

A thousand winters
for this:
white spray
against blue sound
and my babies
giggling
into the wind,
save one
warm on my chest.

If I saw the scene
in a painting --
our little boat
under sapphire skies,
ferries with fresh paint
and the mountains ringed
in cloudy crowns --

Contrived, I might say,
or sentimental.

But here now,
real:
I would live
a thousand winters
for this summer.

baby days

These are the days
of nakedness
with no shame,
no guilt, no blame,
no broken rules.
It's always OK
to cry,
and you can't
make any mistakes.
No wonder the Teacher
tells us to be
like you.

pure and wise

Wisdom too often
comes at the
cost of innocence,
but You say both:
doves and serpents,
holy and shrewd,
fly and slither,
strike
the heel,
but bring back
the olive branch.

some women

Some carried dirty water
too far in leaky buckets,
Some bent low to pick
hard crops in the hot sun.
Some kissed fevered foreheads
in ice-cold ICU wards,
Some made their choices
with no choice at all.
And me? I pushed
a stroller, saw a butterfly,
suffered the little children
come to me.
I'll never know why, but
God said it was
enough.

painting grief

They put her ashes
in the ground today,
my grandmother,
and I didn't cry.
The eulogies were stirring
but my eyes dry,
no tremble in my voice
when I stood with
my sister and sang.

Hours later now
I sit by myself
in the art museum
around the corner
from the church.
Where the words and
music of the
morning failed,
the lines and light
of the artist
succeed.

Undone, I cry
grace for the sinner
whose tears are too late.

his mother's son

How his eyes crinkle
when he smiles,
the way he gets lost
in a book,
his tender heart,
his hair:
the me in him
I love to see.

If only we gave
only the good.

How the ghosts of
imaginary expectations
haunt him,
the way correction
makes him squirm,
his tender heart,
his fear:
the me in him
I cannot take away.

God help us both.

flower girls

The camellias early bloom
in a rush of pink,
immodest and brash beauties,
all rouge and no blush.

The magnolia holds
her buds like velvet tears
suspended in a slow tableau,
their hour not yet come.

Brazen camellia
browns quick as she pinked,
drops in a heap.

Sweet magnolia
opens clean and snow white
face to the light.

little sparrow

Let me not grow weary
of doing it all wrong,
of needing
grace upon grace
upon grace.

Let my path be dark
and let me stumble,
let my strength fail
and my flesh give way.

Let me be the little sparrow
sold for five pennies,
let me fall and be known
in Your care.