My guys

Chest Top

porcelain ballerina

tiny wound tight

turn to clicking notes

that tring flick tock

shoulder chipped

off

tring

tic

stop

It's late in March

the window's cracked

the air is new but I think back.

A siren calls

the dog looks up,

the ghost tip toes but knocks the cup.

The dog lays back

the siren small

the cup remembers not its fall

The ghost ascends

the staircase air

and I tie back my messy hair.

"Mom, I can I make gingersnaps?"

This was my trusty cookbook, and its pages are stained with flour, molasses, ginger, even crusty pieces of dough. It is torn, worn and well loved. Baking was so fun!

Ok, so by the third tray of cookies one became a bit tired of rolling little balls and pressing each with a sugar-dipped fork. The Clara Barton recipe made an enormous batch of cookies. But they sure were good. The key was to rescue them from the oven when they were about 95% cooked, and to let them finish baking right on the rack.

No, if I'm keeping it real I will tell you that I laid the cookies directly on the counter top. I will tell you, too, that at that point I had consumed so much of the batter that I could care less about tasting the cookies. Not to worry. There were lots of willing Samplers nearby. Gingersnaps. I could go for some now.

When Lubna Prays

A stone pulled to earth

a flower bowed to sun

with solemness of snow

as particles make One

Inching over oceans

her ship is eastward bound

and what will be is inshallah

lost and lost then found

Her whispers hit her fingertips

her eyes of steady gaze

a bowing flower

rooted stone

is Lubna when she prays.

What's new?

Hello friends and family! I am in a great mood this afternoon! Left work at 2:30 to go pick up my little man at his A-Mah and Yeh-Yeh's house. Now he is home taking an overdue nap in his crib, and I am spending some quality time with Roxie.

I am at the very tip of a much needed long weekend. Here is what I am thinking about:

I love baby food. I just had a bowl of hot rice cereal with butter and salt. When Rowen is done I finish off his pureed carrots, sweet potatoes, even peas. When was I ever interested in a pea?I draw the line at prunes. Bananas too. But everything else is fair game. You are right, it is strange.

I watched in horror yesterday as a 17 year old kid who slowly made his way down to the road from the Liberty Tax office in a cumbersome and floppy Statue of Liberty costume. It is that time of year again, and we will be passing this gentleman and several of his "enthusiastic" peers every day for the next few months. Don't forget to wave.

We are going to Chinatown NYC tomorrow to meet Rowen's Great Grandma, Roger's Paw Paw. It will be his first mini road trip. What should he wear? It must be red, for good luck. It will be a quick trip, but hopefully we can make time for some dim sum or at least bubble tea!

That is about it. I hope you have a wonderful MLK weekend! As my friend Lisa always says, tell a loved one how much they mean to you.

xoxox

me

"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

'Pooh?', he whispered.

'Yes, Piglet?'

'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'"

-A.A. Milne

Shoes

we still outgrow them

Steps

we still take first ones

Sizes

we're still between them

Parents

still daughters, sons

Just Don't Kiss Me Goodnight

When I was little, maybe about 5 or 6, I was pretty scared of Santa Claus. Wonderful though he was, the thought of a big man entering our home in the wee hours of the morning, tip toeing across the wooden floors just down the hall from where I slept, was a bit too much.

I remember asking my parents to, in the nicest possible way, let Santa know that there was no need for him to enter my bedroom for a goodnight kiss. In fact, there was really no reason for him to come into my room at all, as most of his business ought to be taken care of way out there by the Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve was a sleepless night. I always heard noises out there, and feared that if he knew I were awake he would pass right over this house and go right on to the neighbor's. Everyone knows that Santa only comes when you are asleep.

At the faintest glimpse of light, I would rush into my brother's room to discuss things of the utmost importance. "Do you think he came?", I would ask. "Do you think we can look?" he would respond. We would then sneak down the hallway and steal the quickest glance in the direction of the tree. In the earliest morning light, underneath the glittering tree, the shapes of wonderful things had appeared. Something pink and purple with wheels, a box-like thing that could be the dollhouse I had asked for, some kind of dark tower shape that could just be the Skeletor Castle Grey Skull that my brother had been dreaming of.

It was the unspoken rule, however, that we could only look for half a second before waking Mom and Dad. When we had dragged them out of bed, and successfully ushered them towards the living room, Christmas had officially arrived.

There were even boot prints in the soot around the fireplace. There was nothing but a nibbled carrot stub and cookie crumbs on the plate we had set out. There was always a humorous letter.

We would sort the presents and open them one at a time, working our way right down to the stockings, a tradition we continue to this day. The day I stopped believing in Santa wasn't monumental. But the day my brother stopped believing was very sad for me.

To believe in Santa, what is that exactly? A sense of wonder, a sort of spirituality, a leap of faith, and......

Blessed

on Thanksgiving morning.

Tonight I needed some Pablo Nerudo.

Sonnet XVII

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

- Pablo Neruda

Team

An athlete can spot an athlete, and the day I met Lisa I knew that she was one. In fact, I knew she was a basketball player. She carried herself like a point guard. A leader, a pressure player, I inferred. So while she hardly touched a ball in the four years of college that followed, that initial impression persisted.

When I think of Lisa's college experience I remember someone who was fighting some demons, doing some real soul searching. That, and our silly antics and shenanigans.

By about Junior year she seemed to have pulled herself out of something. She returned to campus with a shaved head, a gesture of solidarity to a friend from camp.

Then Adam arrived. Here's where life seemed to get wonderfully, extraordinarily better. She was one of my first friends to wed. They were married in an intimate chapel on the cape, by Adam's own father. All around them, loved ones shed tears of joy.

Then Grace came. With the child came this very state.

So while we gathered to walk and run for Team Elizabeth, to raise money for cancer research in honor of Lisa and so many others, I've written here about her, not It.

As Lisa walked ahead of the enormous group of friends who had come together in her support, I realized that it's truly the gift of a point guard to instinctively move a team forward in the face of the unknown.

Three

Unwittingly from a pretty pot
I'd poured a night of stirring, steeping
but sleeping not

Inhabitting now night's draining cup
I lurk lukewarm at bottom
soaking stale stuff up

And right back through those pores I bleed
and color dawn with too much me.
It tastes of rust this cup of tea.

Megan Bird

She sang at the nursery window
and sent thought to me of Beth.
Call her, She needs you please, it read.
When he sleeps, I said.
She pushed and pecked at cracks
and I feared the pane might let.
Is that you?
i asked
(for we had never met)

Her perfect perch said yes.
Then Little Baby slept.

so I crept to a room
where whispery taps resumed,
and the gentle shadows of a hopping bird
were present too.

Is that you?
i begged.
Her feathery breath said yes.
So I reached out to Beth.

For when she left her bed,
she Left
to fetch
me
and the rest.

"People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who WE want them to be."




Another blogger posted this quote and it stuck in my head. Although, I'm not sure we "ignore" it. I think perhaps we accept, then forget. Or we see evidence to the contrary, and so we hope.

In the beginning, though, we accept.

It's a different kind of draft
when
two thousand seven hundred forty
souls
are chosen
Unwilling,
Unknowing,
to fight
and die,
by
and
against
an enemy.
But soldiers they are still.

Circles

'Member what those Big Hands felt like under your armpits as they slowly lowered you until there was a lapping Cold over toes and it got inside somehow and shivered high into your bare shoulders that pulled up as the breeze wisked by.

'Member when your jello legs ran over sinky suction sand towards those Big Blue Waves and all of a sudden They were pulling at your feet and down! you went on your bottom but the Hand had not let go, only changed a sandy grip around your wrist and there was an "Up we Go!" and a change of clothes.

'Member when you were allowed to go up to your waist, and when tired of jumping waves you dug your fingers into the water's edge to catch Fiddlers as they dug against the tide, digging for their lives, and they scrambled in your hand searching for sand until you dropped them and ran to your big colorful towel and peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Remember when stepping out of your shorts and pulling off your shirt was a big moment, how you ran into the water, not ready yet, so that no one had time to comment on how grown up you now were, how you now walked the beach and wished that a boy would and wouldn't appear, and how the music in your ears made you feel like the star of a very beautiful movie that everyone was watching.

Somehow with his every first I remember my own and all that followed, all at once.

Rowen, Tree

hey Tree
so much bigger than
me
what have you known
lemme see

Merge

I had four different blogs. A work blog, a creative writing blog, a family blog, and a journal blog, each an outlet for the different parts of me. In an effort to bring these me's together I've decided to try to post everything in one place. You would be surprised how much courage it takes to post a poem or story to be read by people you actually have a relationship with. Here's to putting oneself out there now and then. When one has time.