flunking failure

I remember learning
how to meet a deadline,
make a good
first impression,
play well with others.
I must have missed
the lesson
on how to manage
the other half
of being human:
screwing it all up
and still walking out
alive,
falling on my face,
failing.
Who teaches a kid
to fail well?
If I try and fail,
maybe that will be
success after all.

from a photo

Who are you
who held my son
and holds him still
in bloodline, hairline,
though not timeline,
who are you?
You are not past
tense, past life,
past knowing nor
being known,
you are now.
But you are there.
Being here, there are
a million miles
of concrete and ocean,
culture and option
between us.
Between us, a little boy.
Here,
and there - in you still.
You are who
I am too.

first release

Today it is true
for the first time:
You can live without me.
Doctors, machines,
lights and wires,
yes --
me, no.
And so begins
the series of small
releases,
the slow, beautiful
daily deaths of
being a mother.

my hero

At the dinner table
he is telling the older
boys a parable
about parables
and he has their eyes
wide as saucers.
I can only make out
every other word because
His Pint-Sized Majesty
the Third has used
all his chances to eat
nicely and moved on to
screaming in my ear.
I try not to sigh and
scoop the screecher off
to bed, but steal a
look back as I go:
two little men
and my hero, spinning
the kingdom of God
into a tale of mustard
seeds and dinosaurs
and pirates.

small stones

I know well enough
to leave the boulders alone:
life, health, breath,
salvation.
But surely the pebbles
(just a few)
I can keep in my grubby fist?
Breakfast dishes,
nail-trimming,
and the ingredients
for a simple pasta dinner.
These tiny tasks
need not be grace,
I'm prone to think --
until I fall
like Goliath.

liturgy in utero

Cheek to belly pressed,
he speaks his sister
blessings,
the little priest.
A litany of baby love
he sings into the dark,
a brother monk.
"Big, strong baby girl!"
his final benediction:
Alleluia and amen,
my prophet son.

bonding dance

It was never a fight,
you against me,
but I fought like mad
for you,
or so I thought.
And learned by bruises
not to battle love
into existence,
ex nihilo:
we both lost.
Now then, a new way:
like boxers in a
ballet class,
we bob and weave
just out of habit
while the teacher
sings out "Grace!"