April 19 and SO FAR BEHIND!!!

I'm not giving up. I'm still going to write a poem for each day of this month. But it is definitely taking some time.

I've realized something important...there is great truth to what Alice Walker said when I saw her speak a few years back in Hickory: Writers need TIME. In order to write, you must have a lot of down time. You must have a lot of alone time. You must have time that to others looks suspiciously like loafing, but which is really the incubator for creativity.

Without time to stroll around your yard talking to trees, time to sit perfectly still and stare aimlessly at the moon, time to lean back against a wall and feel the cool of the earth against your legs...without this, the brain has no time to process images...to do that alchemy that is turning an impression into words.

And sadly folks, this is a thing I do not have right now. My days fly by in a whirlwind of sleepless nights, meal-cooking, laundry-doing, question-answering, tadpole water-changing, boo-boo kissing, kid-ferrying, toddler-cajoling insanity. I careen from one needy person to another administering love and food and occasional reprimands and by the end of each very long day, after all the little monsters are tucked in their beds, I crumple into a shapeless heap on the sofa, barely a single brain cell sputtering.

This, my friends, is the stuff of life and often the stuff of inspiration, but it doesn't allow me to write a poem every single freakin' day for crying out loud! (((sigh)))

Alas, I shall perservere. One day I will actually get to my goal and have a full April of poems here for all to read and enjoy or else grimace at.

So...poem for April 15 is this:

Do you know what this is?
asks my neighbor's daughter
who is three. I look at her
etch-a-sketch with one square
and one rectangle one
inside the other, and I say,
It's a building.

Well, no, she says, of course
not. So, preoccupied
with grownup things, I mumble,
It's a box, because that is what
I see. But her sea-green eyes crackle
with mirth at my stupidity
and she patiently explains,

Noooo,
It is a robot tummy.

And so it is.
She is absolutely right.
And for just one moment
her fairy hands have pulled
me, dark and ponderous,
back into the light
of childhood.

Poem for April 14

Ack! Still a day behind. Story of my life...always playing catch up.

This morning, thanks to a cool story on NPR, I learned that coincidentally April is National Poetry Month! How apropos. Obviously the National Poetry People found out about this blog and decided to make a national observance in its honor. Or not. Funny that I had no idea about that when I came up with the idea to do this (originally considered a "good" idea and now considered a "what the hell was I thinking?" idea).

The NPR story was also interesting because they had some lady from the National Poetry People Thingie read some favorite poems by some amazing poets that I didn't all catch because my toddler was repeatedly telling me "no" about breakfast and my son was complaining about having to do carpool. One thing I did catch was some poems by William Stafford, whom I used to read a million years ago, but have since forgotten about. Ah..the craftsmanship! The skullduggery of his words. Inspiring...and terrifying...to someone who who loves the art but putters pathetically with it.

And so, on with The Show...


There are days -
whole days -
that are a frog in the throat,

a pencil with the eraser
chewed off,
a spoiled pear.

There are days
that are two flat tires
in the rain with no spare,

a pimple on the end
of your nose or a worried
hangnail that won't come off.

I sigh through them,
these stingy days, or yell
and burn the scrambled eggs.

Sometimes I cry
along with the babies when the sun
pulls up stakes for the night.

But it's all good in the end.
The sun comes shuffling
back, rubbing his eyes,

and I remember
that this is just where we are
and this is just what it is
in the here and now.

Poem for April 13

Behind again. Yesterday was insane. And Veda won't sleep...less than normal, even. Which means no free time or down time for mama. (((sigh))) On the bright side, we do have a bunch of new tadpoles in the family now...5 Japanese Firebellies and 1 Leopard frog who was a freebie from the pet store because he hitchhiked in with a school of goldfish.

Being not-quite-two,
the world is a full place
and sunshine endless.

April 12 Poem

Tired
feels like a dishrag
in a kitchen that feeds
a big family
who has no dishwasher:
frayed at the edges,
soft and holey
in the center,
and faded all over
from too much wear.

catching up...Poem for April 11

I miss that old place
up on the hill and way
out there in the middle
of nowhere.

that creek sang to me
like an eager lover
all night through open
wavy-glass windows.

the sweetgum trees sighed
and shook their heads
at my young, unrooted,
and artless ways.

It is joyous and sad that
without me the arrowheads
still doze beneath the pebbles
in the creekbed,

the winters still wrap
the dry hayfields
and proud little house
in a quilt of silence,

and spring still pops
each year like an imp
from behind the clouds
to claim it all in the name
of No One In Particular.

Still owe this one for April 10!

Wow...I'm behind. This stinks. So I'm going to do a cheap trick here and write a little haiku for April 10, then hopefully catch up (with maybe another haiku?) tonight. At least, that's the plan. Wish me luck!

several platoons
of sugar ants marching to
my kitchen scrap pail

Poems for April 9 & 10

Well, again I have to do two poems in one day because I never got time to sit down yesterday and write. This is hard! Between working and being mom, there is no time for things like writing and exercising and reading and contemplating...important things, but during this phase of my life, they go by the wayside. Ah, well. Here we go...

I think the real American Dream died
somehow, sometime
in the cold of the night
and no body was ever found.

No somber obituary was written,
no grand eulogy was delivered
in a breaking voice
before a weeping crowd.

Our Dream slipped away from us
quietly, frail,
her heart hollowed from neglect,
already become a hungry ghost

while we worried with prejudice,
felt our hearts break or soar
for unreal lives on a flat screen,
shopped for Rollback specials at box stores.


That one's been floating around in the brainpan for a few weeks...not fully formed. I think the above was just a draft. A direct response to my recent unsavory dealings with banks and bureaucracy and a resulting new understanding of the general fragility of "durable goods" such as houses and vehicles and such.

Will have to get to the next poem later. For now, I have to work.