Robin egg like confetti in the grass
and she gathers the pieces in her palm.
Looks up squinting,
but there's only that shared afternoon blue,
How all those bits contained a life
with wet wings and the smallest brittle bone,
I can not say.
Cracked by beak or gravity,
I can not say.
'Puzzling'
she whispers, the magnifying glass
lighting the shell so bright
that is barely there.
I can't even begin to imagine myself at seventy four. I see my children at that age, but not myself. It isn't that I don't think I'll grow that old with time, but that I don't believe in imagining one's one future. I only predict and dream the lives of my most loved ones. No imagining here, today is the seventy fourth birthday of my father in law. Sweet, stubborn, kind pain in the ass. I can only hope that the same can be said of me in forty years.
Before television,
there was you
broadcast to the world.
Loud, vivid, active.
I imagine you towheaded and brave,
and I can say just as brave, "I loved you even then."
Because I see you in my husband, your child grown.
and I thank you for him.
For gifting me the man
you made to love me,
as he can.
As we all do, and will.
Sweet man in your seventy sixth year,
grandpa to my girls.
I remember when your heart was touched
by man and made better.
Thought how strange
it was to have one's heart feel air,
be in the bright light,
be literally touched.
And then, be put back in the dark
of one's chest like pages closing.
And here you are, amazing
always
saying "the first hundred years are the hardest" and winking,
because you know.
And I love you for it.
You are stubborn, and I love you for it.
Stories long, jokes sometimes totally wrong,
advice usually too long and ocassionally wrong
but all from that blessed heart, and oh how I love you for it.
I love you for the few fine hairs on your head,
for your eyebrows thick,
your belt up high and the way you put your wide hand
around your wife's shoulder and simply lean in to her.
Or pat your son's back, or lift my daughters
as if they were the most fragile fruit
to fall from our tree,
because so brave, you just know.
and I love you for it.
I find myself eating corn on the cob at the computer. Creating a blog, finally, doesn't seem as ridiculous. Sometimes finding the sight of yourself silly is just humbling enough to motivate you to be more than what you currently are (or what you eat). Following my own fear's lead, below is a bit of what I wrote this morning during the babe's nap. About spring, wanting to make it all better ( a mother's bff ) for your children, the world, the garden, and even the renegade june bug.
Not so tall, a matter of five feet and some inches
from the nubs of the carpet, the fingers of the grass.
From the 'you should look them in the eyes' when you're serious.
I should lay there, be there.
Want to cut my hair all off for the garden to keep the rabbits away,
or let it float black blacker in the gulf to soak up the spill.
Laying there on waves, little tendrils of me doing my best
with what I've got, what I've lost along this way
empty homes and hearts
ache from the walk I made myself take,
maybe too, the wine,
or the whine,
or the care.
Carrying children,
or the trash we made in a week,
if I could all the pages I've ever read or wrote or drew
made from the trees now full fisted green,
beautiful and banal as you are.
Conditioned air exhales from the wall,
and I wish instead for a fan with blades spinning.
But, try to love despite that bad word hate.
While weeding there are church bells, and this makes me feel
old, blessed, pleased. The sermon never did.
Aesthetic.
There is an art to the cable wire disappearing into the plum tree,
to the cricket leg song that keeps me awake,
to the june bug armored in the garage late may.
I scoot him back out so gentle with a corn husk broom
into the light, the crack in the driveway laying legs up helpless,
I always try to help right one up,
but this time I just let it be.
