Wednesday Poem

Already half her life ago, but, oh, what a gorgeous poem.

The Hand:

Brightness Falls from the Air

for my daughter at three months

Maybe you thought it was a bird

or some other strange and harmless

creature fluttering in attendance

as you lay on your back in the crib.

But today I watched as you held

your hand inches above your face,

gazed a long, unknowing moment

then suddenly understood its splayed

star-shape was yourself.

You screamed.

I lifted you up and held you close

and all the while I felt you

falling toward our world.

–Gregory Orr

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Day 206

Evabird, you’re starting to sleep in child’s pose–your bum in the air–and it catches my heart a little because I remember sleeping that way when I was a child. At mama-baby yoga the other day, the sun pushed in through the skylight, and the teacher talked about how you babies are getting older, finding your own center; how we mothers must return to our own center too, and I know it’s true; every day you become more independent, more you. 205 days come and gone, little bird, and already so complete, so whole; I’m so grateful to have another day to keep discovering you.

Four-wheeling

So, we went out to Connecticut where they tempt you with their cool breezes and their big ole grocery stores, with their picket fences and their swimming pools, with their four-wheelers and their dandelions…

…and as much as I fear the ‘burbs, I thought, hmm…I thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. But now Brooklyn calls. Maybe I’m just not ready for the bird to do wheelies.

The Adventures of LuLu

In their second year of marriage, the woman was surprised and (secretly) delighted to discover she had married a man who took the garbage out in his underwear.

On Lilies in Water Bottles

New post up at PBQ. Read it:
here.

Realization #84

It’s becoming increasingly obvious from my wardrobe choices (black skirt, nursing tank, T-shirt, Birkenstocks), my hairstyle (uhm, ponytail) and my makeup (a little heavy on the mascara to “open up” the eyes) that I’m begging my friends and family to send over one of those makeover teams to rid me of my “mommy uniform.” Now, if they’d just take the hint.

Held

Storms again last night, and I lay in the after-thunder silence, holding my breath, counting the seconds until you yelled for me, but then the lightning came, and in the after-white, the room glowed hard and magical, but still nothing from you, and so I went to you and stood above you and held my hand on your back to make sure you were breathing–will there ever be a night when I don’t do this?–and I spoke to you, asked if you were scared, if you needed me to hold you, but you slept so soundly, and I told you how I loved you, and I said, it’s okay, and said it again, a bit louder, once more, even louder, but still you slept. Finally, I let you to your dreams, and I went to the room next door and crawled in bed, woke your father, made him hold me until the storm finally passed.

Day 197

Evabird, last night I didn’t have the dream where you are falling from some place high and I have to run to catch you, or the dream where we are out on the road, driving under a shaky sky, and when I look back for you, you’re gone. I dreamed, instead, that the moon was full–wasn’t it?–and that I had a pair of slender silver scissors to cut your hair. I can’t believe how much your hair has grown, how much you have grown, how long the days have grown. They will grow longer for a while, get thicker and warmer and longer still, and then, before we know it, they’ll turn again. Yesterday, my little love, you ate kiwi for the first time; tomorrow, I think I’ll give you honeysuckle, just a drop, from the bush down the street that we keep passing. I sometimes worry that we’ll miss it, that if we don’t hurry, it will bloom and be gone before we ever get out the door.

On Egg Salad & World Dominance

New post up at PBQ.

Read it:
here.

Roses

Sometimes I forget how much I love them…