Elegy for Bennett's Baby Fat: A Poem

I was holding Bennett's little hands in mine the other day, and the realization that his pudgy wrists and fingers are thinning hit me. Hard. It won't be long until his deliciously fat little thighs officially grow into long, lanky legs. Months maybe.

The revelation made me want to bottle up this last piece of baby-ness in him and capture it in a way that later, I'll still be able to feel how his plump baby cheeks feel against my lips when I kiss him. For me, the only way to do that is in a poem:

Elegy for Bennett’s Baby Fat

The fat sausage feet I’ve snacked on

for months help you flee from my nibbles.

You say, Don’t get me and run circles

around our ottoman, dripping

baby fat from your thighs and giggles

from your mouth.  I fattened that face

with milk from my breasts, and now

it’s been swallowed up by a boy

I don’t recognize.  I scoop you up

and chomp on thinning forearms

that used to double over like rubber

bands encircled your wrists.

You say, Eat food, Mama,

and wriggle from my grasp

the same way the boy sneaks out

from the baby you used to be.

Lenten Challenge, Day 30: Go

I've always wanted to go on one of those trips where you just pack a bag and head to the airport, purchasing a ticket on the first flight out. A trip where you just pick up and GO. But the planner in me has always squashed what little spontaneity I may (or may not) have been born with.

I like the thought of just getting up and going, but in reality, it gives me a bit of a panic attack. Where would I stay, what would I do, when could I get a flight back? (Breathes into paper bag.)

I do see the benefit in getting out of my normal, everyday world, though, and replacing it with a new place and a new perspective. It changes me, cleanses my palette a little bit, and heightens my senses. In fact, every time I come back from a trip, my little poetry notebook is always full of new images and pieces of poems.

So today, I'm posting two poems that came out of a trip Ryan and I made to Italy a few years back. It wasn't spontaneous, but it changed me. And who knows...maybe one day I can pack up and go back.

Swiss Alps

Cowbells clanged
as the cable car rocked us up
and over the trees, setting us

down on the top of Monte Tamaro.
Thin air pricked our lungs
and the view pierced our eyes--

an azzuro sky laid out and tucked behind
peaks of snow and sun-poked clouds.
Our guide's arm led our sight

up the highest face to a modern church,
its brick frame jutting out in midair.
A spot to fall in love, said the guide.

We stood at the edge, hands hooked.
Under the sky-roof we thought
our prayers could be heard first.

Ravenna

I heard the sun shine in Ravenna.

It mingled with the purr
of bicycle spokes and the flutter
of a wood-dove's wings gliding by.

Un latte, per favore, I asked,
so I could sit awhile, drinking happy,
and wonder where the citizens
of utopia go for vacation.

Nine Months: A Poem

When Gavin turned nine months old, I remember marking the occasion in my mind. Nine months inside, nine months outside. It seemed significant somehow. Bennett turned nine months old this week, and again, it feels heavy with meaning. Hence, this poem:

Nine Months

For My Boys

  

Into my body you burrowed—

a parasite that broke open

my hips, raised my blood

pressure, and stretched my ligaments

until I swelled ripe like a plum.

I couldn’t wait to be free.

The doctors cut you from me,

and I heard you squawk

before I saw you—

then a series of howls

that didn’t cease

until I held you skin to skin.

Now you’ve been outside

as long as you were in

and it’s you seeking freedom—

twisting your torso to deliver

yourself from my arms

and on to the floor…

           

            …crawling into independence.

Gavin at 9 months

Bennett at 9 months

Autumn Falls--A Poem

Autumn is undeniably my favorite time of year. The warm colors and comfy clothes, the crunch of leaves...the way it creeps in gradually so you don't really notice the change until it's too chilly to leave the house without that extra layer.

I. Love. Fall.  And also this poem:

Autumn Falls

We char filets wrapped with bacon

on hot coals one last time, and enjoy

some power over dead things to come.

Death pollutes the air, its fingers

curling around a honeybee, gripping

tighter, ending his drunken, lazy flight.

It exhales on maple leaves, wounding

their color and crisping their flesh

until they let go and drop to the ground,

protecting the seeds that lie below

and wait for spring.

One of my favorite photos from Russia.
A golden birch in front of the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. 

A Poem on Poetry

I haven't written many new poems since I finished my Masters last spring.  My brain just needed a break after several intense years of work on a collection of poems.  But lately, I've picked up my favorite pen again and started bleeding on the page.

Because that's what it's like, writing poems.  It's this equality of love and loathing that churns out something that's never quite finished.

I think that's why I love the poem below so much.  I took a translation course my final semester of grad school and translated this poem from Polish (with the help of some very talented Polish-speakers).  Though the author intended it to be about translating poetry, I feel it translates well (pardon me there--I had to do it) to the writing of poetry as well.

On Translating Poetry

By Zbigniew herbert

Translated From the Polish

Like a drunken bumblebee

he sits on a flower

until its slender stem droops

he bobbles into its ordered petals

like the pages of a dictionary

he struggles toward the center

where scent and sweetness live

and although he is weak

and lacks taste

he seeks

until his head bumps

the sunny pistil

He’s already at the end

it’s too difficult to pierce

through the flower’s cup

to reach the roots

so he struts off proudly

and loudly buzzes:

I was in the middle

Nonetheless

to those who don’t believe

he shows his nose

dusted with pollen

A Poem on Russia (sort of)

I wrote this after I came home from the Russia trip last year.  I felt like I'd made no difference, except in myself.  If you read my last post on the trip, you know I feel differently about that now.  I'm not quite ready to write poems about this year's trip, but I wanted to put one out there about Russia.  

One Week at Velikoretskoye Orphanage

For Nastya

Put your light in my eyes and let me see

that my own little world is not about me.

                                    —Matthew West

I wanted to tuck her into my womb—

keep her safe and make her my own.

Her eager eyes and clinging arms

should run in my veins—her memory

beating through me with every pulse.

When I breathe, it should be her orphan

scent that billows into my lungs,

like the dusty lace curtains in her room

mingling with foreign skin.

She let me into her world for a week

and all I did was collect her gapped smile,

and high-pitched staccato laugh

to take home as souvenirs.

The Depth of an Emptied Dishwasher

It's poem-posting time again and today, you get a love poem.  Let's all say it together now....ahhhhhh.

This is one of my very favorites from my Master's portfolio, mostly because every time I read it, it helps remind me just how lucky in love I am, even on those days (and we all have them) when we're not feeling quite so loving.

Big-gesture Love

For Ryan

I wished a lover would graffiti

my name on the underside

of a bridge or fill my house

with thornless purple roses

after our first big fight.

I always wanted the proposal

at a sold-out baseball game—

our faces large as houses

on the jumbotron

when I said Yes.

I wished for big-gesture love

and got you—

the one who warms my blanket

in the dryer before bed, stays

up all night when our baby

is sick with croup, and always

lets me choose our Friday night rental.

I wished for my name written

into a song’s chorus

before I knew the depth

of an emptied dishwasher.

A Childhood Poem

Do you remember the Cam Jansen book series about a little girl who solved crimes with her photographic memory?  She'd blink her eyes and take "pictures" of things she wanted to remember.  I read her stories as a girl and remember wishing I had a photographic memory, and making a point to soak in the things I wanted to keep—the sound of my mom singing on a Sunday morning at church, the smell of my dad's cologne when he dropped me off after one of his weekends. 

I think that's part of the reason most of my poems are memories.  It may also be why I ended up in Memory Keeping at Hallmark.

I thought it would be appropriate for the first poem I post to be a memory poem.  So, here’s a poem about transitioning from child to adult.

Peninsula at Raintree Lake

I ran away with Black Beauty

to a pine-tree-lined isle

behind my father’s house,

my back against a pine’s trunk. 

Needles stuck through my jeans

and sap glued pages together,

but it was my sanctuary.

I took engagement pictures

between those pines years later—

we leaned against their sturdy trunks,

smiled into our future,

and they shaded a welcome

for our marriage.

I heard they drooped with disease

a year ago and were cut down.

I haven’t returned to see

their remaining stumps surrounded

by weeds and dead needles.

I prefer to imagine them tall,

and me, secure in their shaded shelter.