Poem of the Day

Inspired by your 2012 project poem of the day, and your post on Power Bursts, which is totally the only way I can write these days, I share with you some of my poems of the day. Written with a call response form from my friend, Melissa, and inspired by her relationship with her children as well I give you...

Crayons

Coloring and Art work by Liam call me William

Request of a friend: "There's a poem to be written about crayons...their divine capacity to both transform paper and be an inspired tool of creators....as well as their cursed presence littering floors and demanding organizational attention...Who will write this poem for me?"

Coloring and Art work by Finn

My response to a friend: "Crayons crayons crayons, waxed and papered, prim and pointed. Belaying my child's inner world brought forth on crisp white snow of paper, on walls, in their mouths so that they speak their color. Oozing reds and yellows, wax indented molars, littered crayons, with scattered peeled paper traipsing my floors, missing my trash. They scamper like mice when I graze my unassuming toe upon their forgotten presence. Evidence of a masterpiece."

___________

Hiccups

Hiccups!

That's.how.I'm.thinking.of,this.dark.day.of.anxious.transitions.

Sleep.WILL.come!

Calm.will.reign!

Rest.will.be.restored!

For.now:hiccups.....

Xox

Total hiccups. Damn hiccups. Interrupting speech, thoughts, dreams. Hiccups total intrusion. Upside down water glass, peanut butter, surprise scares, prayers. Hiccups damn hiccups. Holding breath holding hope hiccups. Damn hiccups be gone!

___________

Hammocked

Sacred space, when analog time holds no meaning,

life suspends itself like a hammock between two rooted trees swaying in the breeze between here and there,          

between before and after,

swaying into that intimate space of the present.

When all you can do is breathe, deep breaths, shallow breaths, breaths…because no one can prepare you for the threshold you are crossing over,

they can only silently, reverently, hold your hand,

offer a gaze,

provide a subtle gesture to let you know that you do not walk alone;

the oils you were baptized with, blessed with, live in that garden of your body’s memory.

The hands that laid upon your own still lay there caressing you.

No, no one can do what your life asks of you.

They can just lay down on the tall grass next to you and sigh,

watching with you as the clouds overhead pass,

and notice as that ant climbs that blade of grass near your face, and that tall strand curves under its presence;

much like the arc of God’s arms cradles our weight in his embrace-- as we too strive to climb nearer to his heart.

And when we rise together from the summer’s green grass

and look back at the matted imprints our body’s left behind

we know we were there

in that sacred space of raw, real life that brings us to our knees

only to know what it is like to rise rooted again.

______________________

(Poem, prayer inspired by the Kiemde family written in July.)

Peeling Back the Onion

So I am finally coming back to our neglected blog, like a favorite novel I am dusting off. I have missed our blog, our connection here where we meet on the pages of motherhood, friendship, nurturing our creativity, our ability to be prolific, or at least intentional. Where our lives crisscross like doodled hash marks on a mindlessly drawn dinner mat, waiting for a server to deliver the meal. I miss this sacred place of intersection, and instead of talking about it, I am just plunging in and recommitting to it. 

Seamus is now 15 months old and I feel like another layer to the onion of motherhood has lifted. The first being when he hit six months and I came up from air to look around, and see that yep everyone was still there in my life after six months of gazing down at his sweet cheeks while he nursed. The next layer revealed itself when he turned one in April and I breathed a sigh of relief that yes, he made it to one, able bodied, breathing, and in his case sprinting around our house like no other boy before him had done. (The others did not attempt walking, much less running until 15 months, he had mastered it by 12. Much to my chagrin.) Now this most recent layer peeled back to reveal my oldest boy waiting for more of my attention to his creative endeavor, photography. And no coincidence, my writing presses in on me for more time, and my running pulls me out of bed before dawn, or some mornings with dawn, when previously I would have hit snooze and rolled over; I roll out.

Having a new baby, is sacred it takes you into your center. Like diving into the center of the onion, its raw, pungent, sweet nucleus, its heart, its core, and then gradually layer by layer working your way back out to its papery sheaths. Seamus’ feet still tender, have slivers from walking barefoot on my brother’s dock, they will never be that newborn raw again like last summer. And reading your Outside post, made me miss the carefree ways of summer, the way I grew up, the way I want my boys to grow up. And yet, this summer has felt heavy with humidity; with summer’s abundance juxtaposed by some friends who have had near and dear losses, and with the anomaly of our lack of travel. No Seamus’ baby feet will never be that fresh again. As I write this, Sandro Cisneros’ words from A House on Mango Street echoes in my mind, “Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.” Summer is about barefeet, solitude, a space for myself to go, the quiet raucous; and having a baby is about that clean fresh paper before you know the poetry they will inevitably write upon your heart.  

And so, I begin again adding another layer to the sheath.

Newborn Bliss

So I am emerging, even if brief, from my newborn cocoon to post. He, our fourth, was worth the wait! The extra twelve days of waiting post guess date--that is really what they are, even if you are sure of your conception date like I was and am. He was worth the extra 2 hours and 45 minutes of pushing, and the amazing release I felt once he emerged gracefully in water and much to everyone's relief and wonder. He was worth losing all my hair this pregnancy and still waiting it's slow regrowth, which since giving birth 2.5 weeks ago has sped up substantially. I managed to avoid induction! An induced labor is way harder than waiting a baby out! I know I have been there with my first. No matter the angst in waiting it is well worth avoiding the devil's spit, also known as Pitocin, at least in my humble opinion.

S. is a calm baby, a little love, who eats and sleeps and eats and sleeps and poops and poops and poops. His big brothers LOVE him, and say it to him daily..."I love the new baby," is a phrase that melts my heart at least three times a day! I am stockpiling these utterances because in nine months when he is mobile and attacking lego shrines I know it will be replaced with shrieks of "Mooooooommmmm, HELP!"

It's taken a while to name cuatro. I thought we were settled and then out he came and Peter said I think he is not a James. What? Not a James? That is the way I thought of him almost every day since six months when intuitively I felt yep, another boy! So to not have it be James threw me. Threw me to the point of we need to wait to announce his name. This throws everyone else by the way...to the point of no more "baby yet?" texts, but instead they are replaced with "name yet?" texts. Finally, we have decided...but I have yet to officially post it. Call me gun shy, or just soaking up my little time with him, but I know I need to go public and soon.

And then what every woman needs postpartum is a visit from a good girlfriend! And I got that in spades when Katie came with her daughter, M. Truly. It makes you feel capable again. I felt energetic and daring enough to walk around lakes, hit the mall, walk the neighborhood, lug home bags of wipes (did I mention we are going through a lot of poop again?!), and drink glasses of wine and chat and laugh. 

I hear my little calling through the monitor. This is all I have time for now, but be assured more to follow! And with that I hope next time to post a picture or two!

PS Just read your post "Be the Trout," and you make me feel like I could climb a mountain!

Silence

So I have been silent the last few days on our blog...not that I have meant to be, nor that it has been my reality here. In fact the opposite my mind has been abuzz with thoughts and I am desperately missing our Zen sittings we sank into with initial reluctance at Upaya in September to a welcomed relief at the end of our writing retreat.

The sun finally came out today after two days of damp grey winterness in this northern tundra and it was a sweet relief I relished. The cloud covered sky was beginning to weigh on me, and I was beginning to think I may never see the sun or anything warm again. The boys worked on their igloo that they built five snowstorms ago in our front yard (it still manages to thrive even with an occasional melt).

Since we moved back to St. Paul from Santa Fe I sometimes feel like I am swimming underwater as I drive through the city streets. St. Paul is humid, and wet, and filled with snow. Santa Fe is arid, dusty, and filled with a crispness that St. Paul will never know because of altitude and the way the light hits here. When I am in Santa Fe I feel like I have come up for air after a long underwater swim. Especially after our hikes, that I so desparetly miss, even if my 5.5 pregnant self sucked wind up the last one post New Year! Thank you K for going at my snails paced--such an embarrassment!

Last night we were at our neighbor's Haggis party, and I got to talking with a mom who was on her third date since her 1.5 year old boy twins were born. As we chatted, she confessed that her friend asked her, "Have you taken the boys sledding yet?"
To which she replied, "I don't do things like that with them at their age when I am solo."
It hit me again, as it has before, the utter necessity to have single girlfriends in your life for this very reason. When you are single you have that carefree-ness that Steph has, that ability to do as you please and sometimes it pleases the single person to sink into the messy, chaotic life of child-rearing even for a fleeting moment, maybe even long enough for a run down a hill on a toboggan with twin boys inside. As I confessed this to her, we both emphatically agreed and then shared that most of our single friends live other places like NYC or California, not in the get-married-when-you-are-young-Twin Cities. As I looked around the party and the amount of boy children present, three of them being mine, with perhaps a fourth on the way, the idea of girls and girlfriends and finding time for girly things seemed all the more important as I tread in the my third trimester of perhaps birthing another son.

No I have been far from silent internally and that is why our writing practice is all the more a necessity to calm the jitters of my mind that race when untended, to focus my heart, and to keep my hands steady and strong.