Tag Archives: poem

Living, Maternal Health Month, Maternal Health Month 2014, may is maternal mental health month, motherhood

The Question

Who am I

but a mother

a purveyor of school lunches

and snacks and dinners

a laundry-washing, clothes-sorting, stain-sticking fiend

a tear-stopper, an instigator

laying down the law, but finding no joy in being in charge.

For being the boss should have its benefits, no?

 

I’m paralyzed by free time.

When I hit the kill switch on motherhood for the night,

the juice still flows.

Like cell phone minutes that carry over, my to-do runs ad infinitum and I think how I can get a jump start on tomorrow.

 

Then my psyche calls.

Hello, it’s me.

Who is me?

 

Someone who needs nurturing.

Who needs slowing down,

sleep.

Something.

 

Something to make her heart sing.

Something to take it all away

so she can decide what to build on.

 

But what?

How

do I get past this feeling of unrest that is the only thing about me that sits

Still

in my heart

my being

my soul

 

To whom do I report?

To whom do I direct complaints?

To whom can I go,

when I know not what I need,

know not what I ask.

 

But there is the question

 

Image

Luke Stettner, Can’t See the Forest for the Trees, 2009.

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Poetry

Soak a Single Moment

 

Tart and sweet,

warmth running down my middle.

The cricket click of a processor.

The whine of refrigeration.

The wave of radiation shimmering in the shadow box of mullions.

No matter where I am, I can find the glow of the sun.

It and I travel all over, and yet, connect –

if I look, if I feel, if I stop to soak it in.

Sometimes the grandest thing to be done

is to do nothing but soak in the sun.

 

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anxiety, Poetry

To Your Corners

I want definition.

I want nice, neat little boxes.

If not black and white, then broad black borders to contain the colors within.

 

Classification. Order.

 

I don’t want things to merge, to blend, to intermingle.

 

I want to draw a line between thoughts and feelings.

I want to shut off that part of me responsible for irrational.

I don’t want to be able just to identify it, but send it packing.

 

There’s a difference between knowing and feeling.

 

I can know it all I want. I have to be able to feel it.

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Living, Poetry

Release

A rivulet of water running off the splash block
cutting an eddy through the sand and shell shards
pebbles and pickings from the beach
that landed on my driveway
months after the pluck
only after ice storms,
freeze and thaw,
cracked the plastic pail they called home.
The terrarium my kids toted home,
a miniature tidal pool,
silica and shale, pebbled granite,
remnants of the ice age released yet again,
eons later
by the elements
only to dribble down my driveway
into the gutter.

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Living, Poetry

Today

Some mechanical hum
the lonesome wail of a railway train
the cyclical sound of rain on window

The acrid smell of heat coming up
The warmth
as it soaks through my sweater
spreading from limb to limb

An upside down paint-by-number
with a hidden smiley face
Drink from that spring-fed well
that defies gravity

And go about your day

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Identity, Living, Poetry

How Low Can You Go?

My head keeps butting up against expectation

No amount of plying with my pronged horns can make it go away

Some holes poked, but never enough to tear the fabric,
to crumble the wall,
topple the tower

I can peep through the hole, see the happy people on the other side

Those who can see their blessings
who are pleasantly surprised by the unexpected
those overwhelmed by the ordinary, everyday miracle

Setting the bar is fine
but those who only try to go over
are always left in limbo

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