My daughter plays the piano and I am carried through time. I hear the first chorded cry, after the lifesong of her body broke open my womb and burst forth like a melody. Our voices, separate, but blended as one. The movement of her youth is passed. A lively staccato that made us dance and…
Tag: poem
My Heart Trembles and Sings:Thoughts on the Beauty and Fragility of Life (Podcast #27)
Have you ever had an experience that startled you into a fresh awareness of the fragility of human life? This podcast is a putting-to-words of just such an experience. Last week my baby boy and I were helicoptered into the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta with a medical emergency which is thankfully resolved now but has…
my heart trembles and sings
my own dear child eyes of bluest bright, alight body in holy motionbrimming over with lifesongand the beating, beating, beating heart beautiful breath that flows inside you like a melody for the gift of your love and living presence my heart trembles and sings (This is the image I saw outside my office window as…
Poem at 2 a.m.
Oh the fragility of earthly life,an unrehearsed songachingly sweet,carried on the windsof a broken worldon butterfly wings. Oh my soulwake up, and liveand sing out loud.The song of the spiritis a candle that cannot be put out.It is a poemmade of brilliant light,a recitationto be spokenin the middleof the darkest night.
First Birthday (love song for a baby)
You came to me from a distant landThe secret place of my innermost beingYou traveled miles and milesTo find me You came in the space between my two greatest sorrows. When the lamp of my womb went out, suddenlyLeaving me with a cold-wind feelingLike the door to every chamber of my heartHad been left blowing…
30 Day Poetry Challenge
I love reading poetry. When I read in poetry, I start thinking in poetry. And this is always exciting. Until I start speaking in poetry, and people start looking at me like I’m weird. About three years ago, I gave myself a challenge: to write and post an original poem a day for 30 days…
The Daily Turn #30: The First Day of Homeschool
Bringing life down to the abcs is likea fresh startwhere all questionsare not stupid questionsand you, the teacherare allowed to learnalong with the children.Today I stared at a long lime greenjumping bug that I have neverbefore in thirty-one years ofgoing outside ever seen.I examined the paper-thinflakes of mica that my daughterhad split and scattered along all the…
The Daily Turn #29: On any other day we would have been strangers
On any other day we would have been strangers,moving like slow ants along the same linefrom the grocery store door to the car.But today, in full heat and sweltering sunwe were thrust suddenlyinto great drops of unexpected rain,and we all became childrenrunning to carsumbrellaless,laughing as we passedon the street.
The Daily Turn #28: Paloma
Your marigold hair casts a red-orange glow on everything around you. You are honeycomb ginger and cinnamon, the sweetest and nicest of sugars and spice. I have never seen deeper pools of clear, clean water than in the bright blue worlds of your eyes. There is good earth there for growing beautiful things– wildflowers of every…
The Daily Turn #27: For Rosie, My First Child
Sometimes I hardly recognize you– like just now when you got up from your bed and came down the stairs, with your little sister trailing along behind, touched the hem of my skirt and said that this is one of your favorite skirts I have that actually it is your favorite and breathlessly announced that…
The Daily Turn #26: One of Those Days
Today would have been a good dayfor all the people who post commentsabout how they don’t know how I do it allto walk into my house–Trying to sleep in too late,barging around about nothing,dropping the broom to the floorwith a thud just becausesomebody wants to eat again.Seeing the world as a series ofmesses that have…
The Daily Turn #23: Sketches of a Morning Spent in a Friend’s Garden
Girls poking holes in dirt and planting tiny seedsthat will grow into salad that we will eat this fall. A little boy sitting on a tractor pretending to drivegetting on and off and back on with little bare feet. The pride on Rosie’s face when she told me that Her favorite part of the day was…