Mary, I

Mary, I
Sitting, full as the moon
Holding this cousin-boy
Forerunner to my son
Days tick by as fast as a clock,
As slow as lake freezing

My husband in awe
Nervous sweat on he brow
Thickness in he throat
Each night I swell into him
Painful sleep
Baby say hello, thump, hello

----
A favorite Christmas memory is being 40 weeks pregnant with my first child during our family party, holding my 5 month old nephew most of the evening. I felt a strong connection to Mary, Christ's mother at that whole holiday. My baby waited til New Years Day to enter the world.
Some of my favorite poems are Lucille Clifton's Mary poems. I wrote this in tribute to her style of writing.

Immersion

I think like a river flows
All
Down
Hill
That flow through murky trenches,
those places where I hide
That is my self-made prison.
I hung a painting on the wall there
and my wet suit on the hook,
so I am home.

We're One but We're not the Same

Strange how our hands meet
Unison lines but different at the tips
(Mine smoothed over, yours stress-eaten)
Even our names are echoes
We each wed a mirror of thought, purpose, faith
We leapt at the same moment
Performed the graceful dive
With perfect symmetry.
Currents caught us.
You twisted in a whirlpool
I was thrust away from the shore.
Before I lose sight of you,
I point to a light streaming over the tumult
"Swim there!" I cry
My arms will burn from the effort
My heart will scream
My hands will meet yours at that lighthouse.

---
Title taken from the lyrics of "One" by U2

Existing

Existing

I exist
In the creases of his grey pants
In the tiny half-moon clippings at rest in the blue garbage can

I exist
In the needle eyes staring everywhere
In the hung frames of faces from the familial sphere

I exist
In the smooth spots worn into a keyboard
In the rough skin of my barefoot self

I exist
In the forgotten light, the forgotten dishes
In the bubbling of yeast and the melting of chocolate

I exist
In the pages I have turned
In the words I have read and written

I exist
In flesh and blood memories
In the holy water of an eternal mind

Dearly Beloved

Dearly Beloved
We are gathered here
Doing what we best love at home
But to which we never get.
Fenced in by words, crawling like ants
Across the billions of pages
That flutter through the imagination.
Fibers are zinging through my fingers,
Love in each loop.
I'm going to treasure these hours, Beloved Ones,
Wishing for a small cottage instead of
A house of hallways
Where we get lost in the maze of everyday lives.

I Wish for the Impossible

Today I wander past store fronts,
Lost in faces,
And in my own clothes.
I wish for impossible things:
Wishing, would you believe, to stroke
The throat of a unicorn?
Wishing for the touch of your fingertips on my face
Without having to remind you
How that tenderness is the highest height.

I am lost today.
My body is hurting
And my grandfather's death
Has left me on a lonely ship
Churning confusion in its wake.
It leaves me seeing faces, set like dominoes,
His as the catalyst tilting forward.
Death.
Inevitable.
I will live to see them all fall down.

--------
My grandpa died on Friday last.
A polarizing figure in our family. I'm wading through my own sorrow and wrote this while wandering.

8 Hours More

I chase that wily thief: Time
My only weapon: a butterfly net
He slips through again
My nerves screech with desire
I have a small petition, if he'll only stop to listen
Four more for the day
Four more for the night
Just eight more hours to stretch each day
An infinite gift from such a small change
At nightfall, head nodding as I slump toward slumber,
I feel that dull indigestion of halted progression.
Eight more, please, to help me rule what is mine.

Remember Me in Fondness

I am a life-sized, cardboard stand-up.
Place me in the room sometime and speak of me aprés mort.
I hope your words are kind.
I hope you remember that I was kind and that,
At one time,
I fit in your world like a puzzle piece.
Do you speak of me, with a twinkle in your eye,
To your sister-in-law?
Do you think of me at all?
All those summers.
All those hand-worked secrets that took days
To divulge.
Not a day goes by, for me.
The one hearing the dial tone,
Seeing the empty mail box.
I think of you.

There are Times

There are times
When the soul
Settles, drifts into the depths
The colored like the impenetrable blues
Of an oceanic trench.

There is nothing to buoy it up
Pursuits seem empty
Things accomplished
Echo.
Hollow victories.

I can see the light shimmering on the surface
There is hope to be seen
All is not lost.
For now though, nothing propels me upward
Even the tides have no power to press me back and forth.