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.