Category — Poems

Each of these is for one of my children… can you tell which is which?

*

water on the floor

experiment gone awry

clean it up yourself

*

forceful affection

your love is exuberant.

don’t jump on our heads

*

you talk all day long

conversing with no real words.

you don’t seem to mind

*

imagination

boy with a cape and a sword

come back to earth soon

*

(I am slowly getting my voice back, and slowly getting better. Thanks for the warm wishes.)

sadness does foretell

laryngitis with nose drip

silence and tissue

Thinking about depression, I started wondering about what I have forgotten. It’s always there in my brain: I have struggled with postpartum depression with each of my babies, but then I forget what it was really like, because I have a habit of remembering the good things.

(The smell of the trees, the light through the leaves, the river talking to us night and day, not the unreliable water, the falling down buildings, the septic tanks that didn’t work.)

Anyways, I dug through some of my old poems and found one that I wrote after YaYa was born. It’s true as true about PPD… the love mingled with darkness. I thought I’d share it.

***
dreams

my infant daughter wakes in the still night
[it is quiet for once on the streets
outside our window.
everyone gone home
or sitting in silent stupor,
having finally run out of things to scream about.]

my infant daughter wakes and I

can tell from her thin sad cry that fear brings her out of

sleep; afraid of what shapes I can’t imagine
what nightmares jostle her into wakefulness

[do you dream of being wrapped in
blankets that cannot warm you,
or maybe of being wide eyed but blind?
or do you dream of being alone
under huge pale colourless skies?]

I won’t tell you what it is like to be alone,
and what nightmares are like once you have names
for them. I won’t tell you of cracked houses falling
and deep sorrows revealed. dreams of betrayal and
adultery, even death. all the nameless unsayable fears that are
haunting in the night, that wake you up crying,
with a taste like vinegar in your mouth.

[when you have bad dreams I pick you up and
sing the fear into yesterday. I look down into your eyes
and wait for sleep to carry you back smiling.]

where is the calm for my dreams, both waking and asleep?
who will send the tornadoes into oblivion,
calm the monstrous tigers with gaping mouths?

windows with no glass, roaring wind enters.
wounds and holes and old friends’ hurt.
torn clothes, no clothes.

[I will keep you, my worst dreams are of not
having you... my haunting is what might have been
if you never had been born.]

[sometimes, though, dreams bring safety not grief
often there are warm hands for me to hold
I am not alone
and I will shrink into my blankets until sleep comes
to carry me back smiling.]

Somewhere a man walks through a desert
With sand in the folds in his skin
Looking for water

Somewhere there is a high mountain
With thin, dry air
Eagles cry and soar beneath men who stand and watch them
Aware of the great distance below
Aware of how easy it would be to fall

Somewhere a river is running slowly
Small and tame and green
Hot rocks and smooth stones,
A child floats by on a raft

Somewhere there is a house
Almost rocking in the wind
Above a grey ocean- there are gulls and maybe terns
It is colder than normal for this season

Somewhere, somewhere, I sit at my open window
Sheets of rain fall, the spray fierce on my face
Everything is wet, everywhere, everywhere
Everything is wet.

On the scooter I am not heavy, not trying to lift myself from my seat on the floor
to chase a naughty toddler.

There is breeze, I am in it, there is release from the humidity
that sometimes threatens to close me in

And there is thunder! Somewhere, in the distance, I hear it
now I notice the sky is darkening, my bags are flapping
full of finds from the market- I’m taking them home to my family

My time is running out, I’d better get back
The gathering dark keeps me from seeing much beyond the road, my other senses are heightened
my sense of smell:
There is the night blooming jasmine
There is the dumpster, full and scattered by dogs and cows
There is the smell of the evening dhoop, the heady incense of the dusk
And dinner is cooking at that house there

Now the night blooming jasmine again and the scent of the jungle
the greenness of it, the living things

(Sometimes snakes mistakenly crawl out onto the road and live no more.)

I feel the first drops
That dark green smell means that I am almost home
wind whipping me, honked at and honking
others are making their way hurriedly too
not wanting to be caught in the rush of water that we are all too thankful for
It has been too dry, this monsoon

But inside I will be even more glad
I am flying, well, at 40 km an hour, I am sort of flying
And the smells are so heady
And they follow me
And I am almost home
And up the red driveway and the rain breaks and chases me inside
where I collapse, wet and laughing

Full of the night, the smells, the storm that tossed me back into
my family’s arms.

My heart song glad,

incense in the morning. Thanks and praises.

We have come into a spacious place,

stepping into thin air

only to find that

falling feels more like flying.

***

I feel aware and alive this morning.  You could chalk it up to dance class last night.  I’m not sure if you remember my “give it a year” philosophy with my West African Dance class, but it seems to be working.  It has been a year, maybe a little less.  All I know is that when I started it was dark outside while we danced, turning the windows into mirrors that we could critique ourselves in, slightly.  And the big barrel stove was going, turning the room into a sauna, making us slightly light-headed.  And then when we drove home we shot through the dark on steep curves, under the trees that are as tall as mountains.

It’s that season again.  All the vineyards are turning, the ivy is turning.  The poison oak is turning.  Everything is beautiful, even the unbeautiful, and my year of dancing has made me stronger.

I wasn’t as faithful about going as I would have liked.  But a year later my feet can follow more often than not.  And a year later I feel like I may just dance as long as I can find classes. 

There are opportunities coming up that have put me into a state of awe.  It seems that God has had our address all along.  And although it still feels as though chunks of my heart break off when people come to look at the Land, mulling over whether they want to buy it, (just don’t cut down the trees!)  I am heartened by the fact that there is this dancing path ahead of us.  And I’m allowed to take it. 

I always feel sad when I come here. 

I am in the City, in San Francisco, the only city that I have ever known intimately.  I know many secrets of this city, especially secrets about the dark underbelly, the shouting that goes on at night, the faces that are slammed into fences and gates.  I also know good secrets, like where to get the best coffee and pizza, and which streets to travel on when you are in a hurry.  I know no other city in this way.

But it never did let me in. 

Now, I am staying overnight in the big sprawling flat where I lived before I moved to the Land.  I don’t know what it is about places that gets into me this way, I only know that I grip things, and my knuckles are tired. 

I remember walking up the back steps, the old wooden steps that are ridiculously steep and that smell like pee, with YaYa, barely four hours old.  I was a little unsteady, but glad to be coming home from the birth center to go to bed. It was about 10:00 at night.  I sat on the couch and someone fixed me some cereal, probably my mom.  They all sat around me, all my friends, on the couch, around me and on the floor beneath me, and some perched above me, on the arms of the couch. They stroked me and touched me and of course, held tiny YaYa, who just hours before had revealed that she was a daughter, not another son. 

These are the kind of memories I am gripping, here.  And although now, years later, I have become so accustomed to the woods that I am sort of blinky and stunned in the City, coming here is sharp and poignant.  This was home.  It belongs to other people now, people who are kind enough to have me come and stay with them.  But my memories of the last couple of years are not of here.

This is the way of things.  And I want to hold on.  But people are the same way, as elusive as the specks of dust that Leafy and I tried to catch, on the day he was sick.  You love them and love them, but you can’t keep them.  Even our children will grow up and go. 

I have somehow entwined myself in the land under my feet.  I feel as though small birds have pinned me to the ground, and when we break away, small pieces of myself will break off, too.  The other day I was talking with Chinua, trying to figure out how to bring the woods and hills with me.  “Maybe a tattoo of a Redwood.  Or a Madrone,” I suggested.

“Definitely a Madrone,” he said.  “A Redwood would make a horrible tattoo.”

Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn’t.  But I have to let go. Somehow. 

And then I remember that I always feel this way.  And I find a poem that I wrote, when I lived here in this house that I feel nostalgic for now.

***

you struggle

 

when you have left pieces of yourself

around the earth,

in this village

and that one.

you’ll find sometimes

that your edges don’t meet

the sides don’t match.

your skin doesn’t stretch to cover

all of you. 

a slight ringing of bells is enough to

draw you halfway around the world

to call you away from your children

splashing happily in their bath.

 

or a stop at the curb

an otherwise annoying smell from

the sewer

sends you rocking into boats

sends you into the warm air.

when you have left pieces.

tan faces, bits of amber

the rush of a crowd in the market

meat on a stick, the cockroaches

your hurriedly made bed

deep in the cold of air conditioning.

 

when you have left pieces of yourself

with people, in this city and

that one,

you’ll find that you can’t

keep your thoughts with you

sometimes

they have taken you on a journey

a musing, winding road, many trees

thick forests.  you struggle

to put a key in the lock of

your front door

with clumsy fingers. 

 

you trip, stand catching your breath

head down, looking at cracks

in the pavement. head in your hands

draw yourself back.

pieces of you, here and there

making small light patches

on a grey and rushing landscape.

***

It is the same.  I am the same, wanting to own what I cannot own, finding it difficult to say goodbye.  And I will get through.

The rest of my birthday was amazing.  We played in the park, and then we grabbed pizzas and went to meet up with friends, where I thought we’d eat and then do cake or something.  But no, I stepped inside the door and my friend Christy said, “I’m whisking you away…” and off we whisked!

I felt as though I was doing something illegal.

“Are you sure?” I asked a few times, until I was satisfied that it was going to be okay.  And then I said, “I’m just wondering about the children,” and Christy assured me that the children were well taken care of.  So I gave myself fully into the hands of birthday whisking, which involved Sushi!  and (joy upon joy) a SPA MASSAGE.  I loved the massage.  I was a little disconcerted by the way the lady acted as though I should know exactly what to do.  “You mean I should take all of my clothes off and then get under the sheet?” I asked, sounding prudish but in actuality just confused.

It was great!  Of course, being me, I had to embarrass myself a little by emerging from the massage looking as though I’d mutated into a red-eyed tree frog.  Somehow I seemed to be allergic to the eye pillow the masseuse had placed over my eyes, and they swelled up into flaming red balloons.  The receptionist and the masseuse turned to look at me, and their serene faces quickly became concerned.  I don’t think allergic reaction was the result they were going for, but my body felt very relaxed, thank you.

I recovered as we drove to our final destination, a wee party at the home of some other friends.  Once again, I began to ask about the children, and everyone conjured up a story about a homeless man who assured them he’d take good care of my kids.  I finally cornered someone and forced the truth out of her.  “Sara’s watching them,” she replied, and from that moment on, I could relax.

The highlight of the party was a song that Chinua made up from words that everyone in the room came up with to describe me.  It turned out to be a little reggae ditty with the refrain, “You don’t have club foot.”  There were lots of other sweet words that said nice things about me but that refrain was catchy as all get-out, and one of my favorite moments was the line “…and all your toes swing freely…”

We’re home now, and I had a lovely day: cleaning, hanging my laundry on the line, moving furniture around.  Renee and I drove into town this afternoon for dance class, which starts in a couple of hours.  Looking on the bright side of things, I reflected, as we drove, that if we lived in town with all the benefits of a town and real live grocery stores and real live herb stores and real live thrift shops and real live coffee shops, we would miss out on this drive that still takes my breath away, every time.

The wildflowers this year!  The wildflowers!  The late rains came and gave us the prettiest wildflowers I’ve seen.  Hills of purple.  Pink clover.  Poppies, wild orchids.  I gasp, I snort, I can’t stop exclaiming over the wildflowers.  I mourn that they are so short-lived, that it will quickly become hot and the sun will scorch them.

if I could,

I would weave you a ladder of wildflowers.

it would stretch straight into the air,

and I’m sure that your feet would scarcely bruise the petals

you’d feel them tickling that soft underside of your foot

as you leapt up my ladder, laughing.

you’d rise above all those things that nicker and nobble

the smokestacks, soot clinging to your clothes, the mounds of paper

bills and to do lists and, well, and all of it

you’d leave the freeways and the dust, the stripmalls, as you held on tightly

poppies springing back under your feet.

lupin under your hands,

I can see you, eying that one cloud as a good resting spot.

the cloud that resembles your band teacher (from the seventh grade.)

I wrote this poem for my best friend, Dori, who I badly missed at the time (still do, actually) and who I went through highschool with and had been living with right before I moved to San Francisco. It’s hard to believe it was seven years ago. She is a heart friend, a gift from God, and although we’ve stayed friends and still visit and talk, our lives have grown to include so many other things. (Like husbands and children.) I’ve always loved this poem, because I wrote it in one of those rare moments when I could say just exactly what I needed to say. 

***

no one else calls me John.

i would love to share this now with you
slice of today, taste of chocolate
yellow cup of coffee in my hand. these new boots
that you have never seen, foreign piece of
mandarin skirt (colour, not
chinese) [you like this skirt] wrap in the
mail- the post irregular, we don’t talk
into the night like we used to
(my hair is gone.)  i cut it off because. well,
because you’re not around when I wake up
anymore ["this is the look i'm going for"] and because
no one else calls me John and i somehow needed
to do something (to take the edge off of missing you)
to dull my resistance to these new things. to believe
again, the things you used to tell me, yellow cup after
yellow cup of coffee in the garden at night
[our spot, my friend]
on the porch sometimes people joined us and sometimes
we sat alone under the trees or
by the house in the light
singing nonsense medleys into the blue.

Mary at Owlhaven is hosting a little contest based on some writing exercises, “I Am” and “I Am From”.  I ran across this the other day and thought it would be fun.  I always feel a little weird, writing so much about myself, but who am I kidding? This website is about me. Here it is:

I Am

I am five feet eleven inches of vertical space, taller than most women but shorter than most trees. I am the woman who said “okay” when her husband proposed, and then laughed, the one who threw sand on the beach in joy, the woman across from my man at the fire, glowing with our secret future. I am wanted, I am captured, I am wearing white under a large tree on a sunny day beside a green lake, saying “Yes.”

I am bare feet among jelly fish in clear warm waters, longing eyes reaching off the back of a rumbling train, watching the giant red sun in an Indian field, shoulders swaying on the back of an elephant, a camel, a rickshaw. I am lost in the Himalayas, walking all day until my feet are raw and I fear we will never be found. I am limp in the heat of a warm Thai rain, waiting for a bowl of noodles on the side of the road. I am standing under a waterfall, I am watching the stars in the desert. I am incense, I am smoke, I am jasmine scented air. I am tossed around the earth like ashes, little pieces of me lost in places I will not see again soon.

I am shared space; it will always be written in my heart that three other people have resided with me for a time, in my own space, the warmth of my body which has grown and nurtured three young wild things, given to me but not mine. I am a mother, needed in every waking moment, my hands are always touching a person needing to be touched. I am the midnight hours, I am giving water, cleaning sick children, going without sleep. I am panicked, not knowing whether I can do this again, night after night. I am doing it. I am chapped hands from washing dishes, bent over picking up toys, breaking up quarrels, I am exhaustion, I am dull from repetition, I am safe, I am blessed.

I am the quiet space between night and morning, opening up the day with a cup of coffee and a pen.  I am paint thrown onto a canvas, words wept onto a page, I am always longing, always seeking.  I am a camera, I am oils, acrylics, charcoal. I am dancing while I paint, I have never felt so free.  I am lonely, I am afraid, I am sad and away from my easel too often.

I am the young child who read for hours, the woman who sneaks a few chapters between lunch and nap time, the girl who told her brother and sister to “Go away, I’m reading.” I am a loner surrounded by friends, I am helping, I am wanting to make you happy. I am stormy, emotional, I am too many words when I should be quiet, I am apologies.

I am from a proud gentle northern country, I am a girl who knows black ice and windchill well, chapped hands and lips and frozen toes, who knows Northern Lights and loons on lakes and prairies and forests with great wide space.

I am cupped hands, I am tossed like a flower, a well trodden street, I am known. I am hopeful, I am not alone, I am written on the palms of the hands of God, I am adopted, I am not afraid. I am loved.