The Poem Returning as an Invisible Wren to the World

Once, there was a poem. No one read it & the poem
Grew wise. It grew wise & then it grew thin,
No one could see it perched on the woman's
Small shoulders as she went on working beside

The gray conveyer belt with the others.
No one saw the poem take the shape of a wren,
A wren you could look through like a window,
And see all the bitterness of the world

In the long line of shoulders & faces bending
Over the gleaming, machined parts that passed
Before them, the faces transformed by the grace
And ferocity of a wren, a wren you could look

Through, like a lens, to see them working there.
This is not about how she threw herself into the river,
For she didn't, nor is it about the way her breasts
Looked in moonlight, nor about moonlight at all.

This is about the surviving curve of the bridge
Where she listened to the river whispering to her,
When the wren flew off & left her there,
With the knowledge of it singing in her blood.

By which the wind avenges. By which the rain avenges.
By which even the limb of a dead tree leaning
Above the white, swirling mouth of an eddy
In the river that once ran beside the factory window

Where she once worked, shall be remembered
When the dead come back, & take their places
Beside her on the line, & the gray conveyor belt
Starts up with its raspy hum again. Like a heaven's.

Larry Levis

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

and now for some words from ee cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings;and of the gay
great happening ilimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any - lifted from the no
of all nothing - human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Poem to Myself

You have given your son a plastic watering can
he now holds suspended over the bathtub
watching a stream of water shower down
upon the smooth, white surface.
As he fills it again you reach for your book and open it
to a favourite poem hoping to thwart
this staggering boredom that comes from sitting
crouched in play now for three years.
The poem is well-rhythmed and vivid,
turning a handful of simple moments
into a kind of rhapsody,
causing the little wings in your chest to rustle and flap,
all because of a peach, an arched bridge,
a walk in the garden.

What I want to say to you is,
lift your eyes off the page.
Put the book down and direct
your gaze to your small son.
The bottoms of his socks have darkened,
and patches of water spot his jeans but still
he carries on with his industry,
broadening his scope to include
the tiled shower stall and the little perched sink,
feeding liquid down into each silver gullet.
Look at his face, the way he is so rapt,
yet at the same time open
to the full enjoyment of what he is doing.

These are the moments of his life,
which are the moments of your life, too.
The poet has crossed the bridge,
he has finished the peach and tossed the pit
into a snarl of bushes and gone home to sit
by a blazing fire where you are not invited to join him.
Step out from the thicket
of your mind and join your son instead.
Follow the damp footprints down the hall
and watch as he pulls a heap of soft blankets
to the floor and fashions them into a nest.
He wants only that you climb in with him, that you sit
together taking turns, first him, then you,
his little finger pointing. You are the Mama bird, he says,
and I am the baby.

Sara Byck

anniversary

Ten years ago today I had a miscarriage. I have talked about it before. So there isn't really anything new to say. But I can't seem to just let this day pass by unmarked.

Knitting

After three months
Of silent stitching
In that private rocking place
What finger let slip
What growing row of cells
Unravelled, loosing life and
Leaving the lap empty?

Amy Olson-Binder

Individuation

At three it begins.
He turns from me as from a captor
one who he’s come to love, mind you
but also to disdain.
He is inconsistent in his affection,
reaching for me one minute,
snubbing me the next.
The promise of a cookie
holds less sway over him
and threats lose their power altogether.
When I turn off the T.V. he screams in protest,
holds his winged dragon up to my ear
and says, “I will make you die.”
Only last year his warm plump body
fit snugly into my arms.
Now he is long, leaner,
his pant legs always short.

Sarah Byck

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

stigmata

I bear in my body
the stigmata of perfectionism
shoulders locked
vertebrae fused
neck aching
arms sore
as if it’s not enough
to bring in one grocery
bag at a time

Kate Madden Yee

Perspective

The tantrums
are every day
now, over anything
sometimes,
his blocks
won't stay stacked,
the legos
have too many
pieces
and he can't stretch
out his legs
when he dumps
them in his lap,
none of the books
turn pages fast enough,
and he's seen
all the pictures,
claimed out loud
every one of them
is a ball.

He's learning the boredom
of objects,
their limitations
in providing happiness
and delight.
I sit back
like some Discovery channel
scientist,
notebook and pen
watching
the wildlife,
how the closer he gets
to tired
he starts to stumble,
trip,
wobble,
and the disintegration
of his control
over himself
sends him
to the floor,
hunched over sobbing
into the carpet,
screaming,
nayh,
which I believe
means no,
no to all of it lately,
no to toys
that don't do
what he wants,
no to his body
that betrays him,
slower than
he can compensate for,
skills not fine
enough yet,
his motor thrumming
wildly under
that flushed breath,
wanting more.

And then
there's no to me,
the one staking
out his boundaries,
designated marks
of reach,
what remains
open,
what will be
closed,
and the decisions:
about food,
clothes,
diaper changes,
nap times,
television.

In the cool
middle of the night,
when he's finally
too heavy
and given over
to fight,
I can still rock him
back to sleep,
tell him
it's all coming,
freedom,
independence,
loss of innocence,
there's always more
shiny toys,
the squeezing confines of flesh,
people who say no,
and this is what we have
in deep darkness,
what we come back for,
where we fall safely,
what we are when we love:
bodies in nightshirts
blankets
piled like hills
to a horizon line
of blue,
sunrise a hum
up from the throat
and around
into the arms
holding on,
but not too tight.

DeAnna Jones

ad infinitum

Still I bring flowers

Although you fling them at my feet

Until none stays

That is not struck across with wounds:

Flowers and flowers

That you may break them utterly

As you have always done.

Sure happily

I still bring flowers, flowers,

Knowing how all

Are crumpled in your praise

And may not live

To speak a lesser thing.

William Carlos Williams

See That?

I'm rocking to the rhythm of the rain with Noah on my lap,
His head nodding with each to and fro,
His eyelids drooping, lashes casting spiky shadows on his cheeks.
He looks toward the window at the stained glass apple hanging there.
"See that?" he asks and points a stubby finger in the air.
"Yes, I see that," I answer.
He asks that question, and I answer that answer every day.
His toys trail across the floor, testimony to this tiny tornado,
Ending at his scuffed, blue sneakers with the Velcro straps on top.
They are a most treasured possession, his ticket to outside.
His short legs dangle over my knee, and I can't believe how fast he has gotten here.
I'd like to stop time, or to reverse it, and relive the last two years at a slower pace.
He lifts his hands.
They almost open and almost close several times.
They turn quarter turns, back and forth, in a dancing ritual I know heralds his surrender.
His hands still, and his body grows heavy and limp.
His encrusted tee shirt tells the tale of breakfast, lunch, and snacks.
With my fingernail, I remove a raisin from the cowboy on his pocket.
I whisper to him about all the places he will go,
And the man that he will be,
And all the things that he will see.
"See that," I say.

Cat MacDiarmid

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e e cummings

another milestone

I almost forgot to mention this, but the Lion is 18 months old today. If I knew how, I would play a song for him on here. But I am not so savvy, so I will just post the lyrics here for you to read. It's "Yellow" by Coldplay:

look at the stars
look how they shine for you
and everything you do
yeah, they were all yellow

I came along
I wrote a song for you
and all the things you do
and it was called yellow

so then I took my turn
oh what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow

your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones
turn into something beautiful
you know you know I love you so
you know I love you so

I swam across
I jumped across for you
oh what a thing to do

cause you were all yellow

I drew a line
I drew a line for you
oh what a thing to do
and it was all yellow

your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones
turn into something beautiful
you know for you I'd bleed myself dry
for you I'd bleed myself dry

it's true, look how they shine for you
look how they shine for you
look how they shine for you
look how they shine for you
look how they shine for you
look how they shine ...

look at the stars, look how they shine for you
and all the things that you do

Pantry

for R.M.M.

We wander into the kitchen
you lead with "dis way"
the moon in the window
big as clotted cream in the soup.
The keeper of all great mysteries
opens its jaws to let us in.

"pice?" you ask and point.
"yeah," "loogat dat," "gookie,"
"nana," and everywhere "dat"
a finger showing the way.
We stand in the pale light
Nutmeg. Cinnamon . . .

The house sleeps and I lose thought
of your weight as though the moon
carries you too and makes you and the ocean
light as ethers and I could stay here
all night naming jars and smelling
your perfect, perfect skin
while you forge language
out of this heavenly domesticity
out of glass jars and exotic dark spice.
Turmeric. Paprika. Thyme.

Micheline Maylor

Eurydice

All the male poets write of orpheus
as if they look back & expect
to find me walking patiently
behind them. they claim i fell into hell.
damn them, i say.
i stand in my own pain
& sing my own song.

Alta

a quarrel

My Aunt D was in town this weekend. On Monday, Jonny and I took the babies over to George and Leila's house for a cookout to hang out and eat and see her again before she returned to Connecticut. It was a very lovely, mellow day. A nice way to spend Memorial Day.

While we were hanging out in their living room, I heard William, my nephew, yell from the other room:

No, Blue, go away! I don't want to play with you!
 
I immediately ran to find her, walking toward me, looking a little dazed. William is only 5 and he wanted to play with his older cousins. I can't be mad at a little kid, right? Right?

But I was. I was furious. How dare anyone yell at my girl like that? Especially William. Blue adores William.

I sat her down on the couch and gave her a pecan tart and told her that sometimes people act mean, but that they don't mean to hurt our feelings blah blah blah. But inside I was so angry. And my heart felt like it had a great big crack in it.

And in case you are going to say, Don't worry about Blue, Erin. That happened on Monday; I'm sure she's forgotten all about it by now, let me tell you, Nope. My Blue doesn't "just forget" anything. She was on the phone with my mom yesterday and she gave her an earful! "Willum was mean to me. I can't want to play with him."

On the way home from George and Leila's, I told Jonathan, This is going to be really awful, isn't it? We are going to have to stand by while our children's feelings get stomped on sometimes. Because kids are really crappy to each other sometimes. Childhood is hard.

I've never really thought about it before, but somebody's kid has to be the one who misses the pop fly and loses the whole game. I guess every parent sitting on the sidelines is praying the whole game that it isn't their child who screws up. Reminds me of that scene in the movie "Parenthood" when the ball is heading right to Steve Martin's son and he's watching helplessly, gritting his teeth, saying "Oh, shit! Oh, shit!"

Reminds me of this poem from Spoon River Anthology that I had to memorize for my high school drama class:

Elizabeth Childers
DUST of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
And stopped when you left me for Life.
It is well, my child. For you never traveled
The long, long way that begins with school days,
When little fingers blur under the tears
That fall on the crooked letters.
And the earliest wound, when a little mate
Leaves you alone for another;
And sickness, and the face of Fear by the bed;
The death of a father or mother;
Or shame for them, or poverty;
The maiden sorrow of school days ended;
And eyeless Nature that makes you drink
From the cup of Love, though you know it’s poisoned;
To whom would your flower-face have been lifted?
Botanist, weakling? Cry of what blood to yours?—
Pure or foul, for it makes no matter,
It’s blood that calls to our blood.
And then your children—oh, what might they be?
And what your sorrow? Child! Child!
Death is better than Life!

Spoon River Anthology is one of my favorite books. If you've never read it, it is basically a collection of poems about the occupants of the Spoon River Cemetery. Each poem is basically one person summing up their entire life in a poem--what they would say to you, about Life, if they had the chance. It's really an amazing book. If you've never read it, you should definitely check it out.

Mid-Claire

As I was dragging dinner
kicking and screaming
from cans and plastic packages,
three-year-old Claire was dragging the magnet tin
from the back of the pots-and-pans cabinet.
Together we spelled CLAIRE on the refrigerator —
bold, bright.
Red, yellow, green, purple against white.

I went back to the problem of dinner,
Didn’t notice until late that night
that somehow CLAIRE
had become MID CLAIRE.
Random letters she had plucked out and stuck on?
Or some kind of message
from her three-foot-tall self?
Take note — Claire’s not through here,
forget about tidying up,
putting magnets back in tins,
tins back in cabinets.

In the midst of Claire,
dinners are cobbled,
beds are made with lumps,
questions are asked and asked and asked,
the same questions,
the same ones,
the same.

Every day insisting she’s trading places
with her one-year-old sister —
“I’m your baby who crawls. Will you tell Daddy that?”
Every day thirty or forty times.
Every.

It’s how I live now:
The doorbell rings —
Oops, sorry, you’ve caught me mid-Claire,
my hair in a towel,
dishes in the sink,
newspapers unrecycled.

Maybe it’s that I live now,
down in the dirtpiles of raw emotion
I had choked down for so long
swallowing my rising gorge
lest the mess kill me.
Now I catch other people’s vomit in towels or my shirt,
gather collapsed crying forms from floors when I’d really rather join them.

“Claire is ready for the world,”
said a mother we met at the park
in the beautiful confident cadence
I've always envied in African-American women.
Claire, not yet walking then,
was trying trying
to climb a ladder
taller than me.

From her arrival
I’ve woken up mid-Claire.
Never a baby to mew or babble in her crib,
she graveled awake
from silent and sleeping
to all rasping, scratching cry from the throat
as if her first breath were an exhale.
Now still all exhale
talking all the while
every breath an engine for speech.
Every breath.

I struggle to not hyperventilate.
I don’t want to die mid-Claire,
Don’t want to be cut down in the prime of Claire,
Couldn’t bear
to miss a beat
of spoken air.

Donna Levine Gershon

A Poem Written in Ezra's Sleep

for my son

Tonight poems are specters —
they move around me, unwritten.
There is one in a postcard of a flying fish,
one in my great grandmother’s Christmas angel
hanged like a horsethief in the corner.
There is one in the light shattered
through the lampshade like a carcrash windshield.
There is one in the buzz
of the refrigerator as it cools the milk.

But I choose you, tonight, here,
tangled in the flannel sheets, your head
tipped over the edge of the bed,
a pillow in a daisied case flattened
uselessly between your knees. The soles
of your socks are filthy. There is a scribble
of a robot left on your palm, and another
crawling up your thigh. In the morning,
I will pour the Cheerios, make you
eat three, then two, then one
more spoonful. In the morning you’ll bite
when I brush your tiny teeth.
Tonight you snore.

No poem needs writing as much as yours
tonight. I want nothing
other than to watch over you, my sleeping
child. Perhaps if I look long enough,
I will see your dreams. In just a moment,
I’ll see you mount a flying fish,
and battle the horsethieves and angels.
Or perhaps your dreams will be quiet:
your mother reading you a poem
or going to pour you a glass of milk, her face
leaning into the light of the refrigerator.

Elizabeth Faith Aamot

Menses

(He speaks, but to himself, being aware how it is with her)
Think not I have not heard.
Well-fanged the double word
And well-directed flew.

I felt it. Down my side
Innocent as oil I see the ugly venom slide:
Poison enough to stiffen us both, and all our friends;
But I am not pierced, so there the mischief ends.

There is more to be said: I see it coiling;
The impact will be pain.
Yet coil; yet strike again.
You cannot riddle the stout mail I wove
Long since, of wit and love.

As for my answer . . . stupid in the sun
He lies, his fangs drawn:
I will not war with you.

You know how wild you are. You are willing to be turned
To other matters; you would be grateful, even.
You watch me shyly. I (for I have learned
More things than one in our few years together)
Chafe at the churlish wind, the unseasonable weather.

"Unseasonable?" you cry, with harsher scorn
Than the theme warrants; "Every year it is the same!
'Unseasonable!' they whine, these stupid peasants!—and never
since they were born
Have they known a spring less wintry! Lord, the shame,
The crying shame of seeing a man no wiser than the beasts he
feeds—
His skull as empty as a shell!"

("Go to. You are unwell.")

Such is my thought, but such are not my words.

"What is the name," I ask, "of those big birds
With yellow breast and low and heavy flight,
That make such mournful whistling?"

                                                      "Meadowlarks,"
You answer primly, not a little cheered.
"Some people shoot them." Suddenly your eyes are wet
And your chin trembles. On my breast you lean,
And sob most pitifullly for all the lovely things that are not and
have been.

"How silly I am!—and I know how silly I am!"
You say; "You are very patient. You are very kind.
I shall be better soon. Just Heaven consign and damn
To tedious Hell this body with its muddy feet in my mind!"

Edna St. Vincent Millay