For three days we were together
All twenty-two of us
In my parents' little ranch house
With the walk-out basement
Where my 96-year-old grandmother lives
My seven
My brother's four
My other brother's four
My sister's four
My parents
And my grandma
All on top of each other
Stuffed onto every couch and chair
Jumping over legs
Squeezing past each other
Dodging foam swords and balloon rockets
But everyone merry and bright
While I sat one night playing cards
With my sister and sisters-in-law
My father sat locked in animated conversation
With one of my nephews about a chemistry project
Discussing the possibility of burning excess methane gas
And using the carbon dioxide produced to make limestone
While my husband and my oldest brother
Exchanged perspectives on the interpretation
Of the book of Revelation
From the front room drifted the familiar sounds
Of the same movies my kids have watched
Every Christmas they've ever been at Grandma's
Because Grandma rarely buys a new movie
And I thought that that moment
Could never be more merry or bright
It was colder than Antarctica outside
Opening gifts was a bit chaotic
The top dishwasher rack fell apart more than once
The air mattress I slept on gave out in the middle of one night
And left me mostly on the floor
There was the same microwave that has run like a diesel engine
Since the day they bought it ten years ago
Shaking people from their beds each morning
With every bowl of oatmeal warmed
When my aunt and uncle dropped by with my cousin and her family of five
We had to send a team in a minivan to haul home enough Casey's pizza
Just to feed everyone once
My mom had to teach me how to count the beeps
To set the correct temperature on her oven
So I could heat my family's gluten-free pizza
Since the display is a bit garbled these days
(That's five beeps up for pizza, by the way
And you have to keep it in the front right corner
Because the back left tends to burn things)
But there was not a house in Iowa that night
More warm or merry or bright
So many stories
So many hugs
Really listening
Truly caring
Some patience and lip biting
Right when they were needed
So many laughs
When we presented my parents with a new (quiet) microwave
My dad said he didn't know what that was for
Since their old one worked perfectly fine
And my mom wondered how she would know now
When my dad was using the microwave
While she was outside gardening
So much warm and bright
My dad sat one night in the office
Where my boys were bedded down
In sleeping bags and blankets on the floor
And sang his favorite repertoire of bedtime songs
In his deep and gentle tones
That woke up memories from bedtimes
When I was my boys' age
And for awhile in the bursting house
All was very calm
And dim
And melancholy
And bright
Everyone was ready to leave and sad to go
With rounds and rounds of hugs and good-byes
While the kids scrambled to find their shoes
And the parents scrambled to find their kids
And when we were finally home
Elijah said he would sleep better
If he were still at Grandma's and Grandpa's
Our house was a little too empty, I think
So I sat by my boys' bed a little longer
And sang every song I could remember my dad singing
I sang them in my deepest, gentlest voice
And for a moment that room
Was calm
And dim
And merry
And bright
Friday, December 29, 2017
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Seedlings
I've loved trees since before I can remember. I remember rocking in my mother's lap with my blanket and loving the blue spruce outside the window. There was a tire swing in an enormous weeping willow that drew me in from the time I could walk. My dad loves to tell the story of how I once, at the tender age of four, climbed far too high in that weeping willow. When he called to me to warn me that I could kill myself up there I had called back with great annoyance, "Well at least I would die happy!" Laughter bubbles up inside my dad every time he tells that story because he knows how right I was.
We moved from that house and those trees when I was five. The trees at our new house were younger. Two apple trees, two ash, a maple, and a pine. The maple was uselessly spindly, the pine was a bit sticky, and the apple trees were too small to be an adventure. But the ash in the back corner of the yard on Harmony Drive had low, flat branches that wound up the tree just like a winding staircase. I could almost walk right up into that green tower, where I would sit still for what felt like hours with only my quiet thoughts.
When I was maybe eight or nine, walking home from school one spring day I stopped to pick up three silver maple helicopter seeds. I peeled the green shiny pods from their dead flaky crust and rubbed them in my palm with my thumb. Without too much thought I stuck them in a row in the empty flower bed beside my house and wondered if they might grow, and to my great delight, they did. I watered them and watched them with pride for a month or so, before begging my dad to help me plant them in the yard. I asked my dad, of course, because he was the soft one when it came to impractical nonsense. And he lovingly helped me transplant three silver maple weed-trees in a row beside our hedge. He helped me stake them up so they would grow straight and fence them off to keep the bunnies from nibbling. And I realize now that he mowed around those ugly trees for over a decade simply because they were "Kathy's trees."
After my maple trees were well established there came one day in a Ranger Rick magazine, a postcard that I could fill out to join The National Arbor Day Foundation, which I promptly sent back with $10.00 of my birthday money so that I could receive ten free trees. A few weeks later a large manilla envelope arrived, and I was thrilled to find ten spindly little Colorado Blue Spruce twigs inside. I think both of my parents helped me this time to cut the tops off of ten 2 liter bottles and fill them with some dirt from the back-yard to plant those tiny twigs in. I loved watching those saplings come back to life in that dirt, and grow stronger with my care. Five of those trees survived and were eventually planted around the edge of the yard on Harmony Drive, where I believe they all stand to this day. I had big plans of turning my entire yard into a forest at that time, but then I grew.
It's hard for me to realize now how the worries of life dried up my early love of green things growing. For so many years the garden was beyond my reach--in the Chicago concrete, in the dormitories, and the condos, and the rental properties where we never owned the dirt. Life was keeping everyone going, and time was for surviving and saving my strength for tomorrow.
It was Hannah who woke me: yapping on and on about the magnificent magnolia and how high she had climbed in the overgrown Arbor Vitae. It was Hannah crying when we moved away from that magnolia, and Hannah naming every tree at our new house before we'd been there a month. It was Hannah sobbing as the electric company's tree trimmers irreverently lopped off half of our sugar maple, "Belle," and Hannah sobbing again as the half-dead Elm where the woodpecker family lived came down last fall.
At first, to my own horror, I heard myself dismiss her. I heard myself spout practicalities and wisdom, and far too few tears. My aunt told me then that my Grandpa Johnson, who died the year before I was born, loved trees. She said he loved the great oaks by the old white farmhouse in Minnesota that I remember swinging under. I never knew I had so much of him in me… and in my daughter. I looked again at the ruined Elm, and this time I saw it. I cried with Hannah for the Elm tree then, and I ached for our loss.
It was Hannah who eventually wore that dead flaky crust off of my heart, and smiled at the shiny green seed inside. This spring she put me back in the dirt where my roots could drink deeply, and she is watching me come back to life. This spring Hannah and I are watching all the green things grow.
Hannah told me that our sun porch could be a greenhouse, and I believed her. We went to buy a few packets of flower seeds and decided to almost clear the shelf. We put six-dozen eggs in a bowl in the fridge so we could fill the cartons with seedlings. We passed the little display of fruit bushes and strawberry shoots and decided to grab one of each of those too. Naomi caught wind of our fever and asked if she could plant some pear seeds from the pear she was eating. I told her they wouldn't grow, but that we had plenty of dirt so she could give it a go if she wanted. And heavens, this spring our sunporch is growing!
The flowers are growing, hundreds of flower sprouts!
The fruit bushes and shoots are bushing and shooting!
And glory be, even the pear seeds came to life with their big, strong leaves pushing up and out and into the sun!
And we all feel just like we have new babies. We're gently watering, and carefully transplanting, and rooting for each seedling because they are growing right in our souls. We're researching D'Anjou Pear trees to make sure we can actually grow these babies, and then, when we find out that D'Anjou Pear trees need to be planted with a Bartlett Pear tree for pollination, we are eating Bartlett Pears as fast as we can and planting ALL the seeds because we REALLY need at least one to grow!
Then, because we didn't have enough things to grow, this week I helped Hannah join the National Arbor Day Foundation, and we are both eagerly anticipating the arrival of her ten free Redbud trees.
"Where exactly are you planning to put all of this stuff?" Matt asked one day.
So we all glared at him like we'd glare at the naysayer who forgets to say "Congratulations" to the mother who has unexpectedly found herself pregnant with a seventh child. And then we sighed and reminded Matt that trees are blessings, not burdens, and that I'm the one who'll be mowing around them anyway. And to this he had no reply. And so it is settled: our yard will be a forest one day.
And my soul will be happy. It will be full of green things, and life, like it should be. And Hannah's soul will grow strong with the trees, just like her mama's did. And if we die trying to keep all these green things alive, at least we'll die happy.
We moved from that house and those trees when I was five. The trees at our new house were younger. Two apple trees, two ash, a maple, and a pine. The maple was uselessly spindly, the pine was a bit sticky, and the apple trees were too small to be an adventure. But the ash in the back corner of the yard on Harmony Drive had low, flat branches that wound up the tree just like a winding staircase. I could almost walk right up into that green tower, where I would sit still for what felt like hours with only my quiet thoughts.
When I was maybe eight or nine, walking home from school one spring day I stopped to pick up three silver maple helicopter seeds. I peeled the green shiny pods from their dead flaky crust and rubbed them in my palm with my thumb. Without too much thought I stuck them in a row in the empty flower bed beside my house and wondered if they might grow, and to my great delight, they did. I watered them and watched them with pride for a month or so, before begging my dad to help me plant them in the yard. I asked my dad, of course, because he was the soft one when it came to impractical nonsense. And he lovingly helped me transplant three silver maple weed-trees in a row beside our hedge. He helped me stake them up so they would grow straight and fence them off to keep the bunnies from nibbling. And I realize now that he mowed around those ugly trees for over a decade simply because they were "Kathy's trees."
After my maple trees were well established there came one day in a Ranger Rick magazine, a postcard that I could fill out to join The National Arbor Day Foundation, which I promptly sent back with $10.00 of my birthday money so that I could receive ten free trees. A few weeks later a large manilla envelope arrived, and I was thrilled to find ten spindly little Colorado Blue Spruce twigs inside. I think both of my parents helped me this time to cut the tops off of ten 2 liter bottles and fill them with some dirt from the back-yard to plant those tiny twigs in. I loved watching those saplings come back to life in that dirt, and grow stronger with my care. Five of those trees survived and were eventually planted around the edge of the yard on Harmony Drive, where I believe they all stand to this day. I had big plans of turning my entire yard into a forest at that time, but then I grew.
It's hard for me to realize now how the worries of life dried up my early love of green things growing. For so many years the garden was beyond my reach--in the Chicago concrete, in the dormitories, and the condos, and the rental properties where we never owned the dirt. Life was keeping everyone going, and time was for surviving and saving my strength for tomorrow.
It was Hannah who woke me: yapping on and on about the magnificent magnolia and how high she had climbed in the overgrown Arbor Vitae. It was Hannah crying when we moved away from that magnolia, and Hannah naming every tree at our new house before we'd been there a month. It was Hannah sobbing as the electric company's tree trimmers irreverently lopped off half of our sugar maple, "Belle," and Hannah sobbing again as the half-dead Elm where the woodpecker family lived came down last fall.
At first, to my own horror, I heard myself dismiss her. I heard myself spout practicalities and wisdom, and far too few tears. My aunt told me then that my Grandpa Johnson, who died the year before I was born, loved trees. She said he loved the great oaks by the old white farmhouse in Minnesota that I remember swinging under. I never knew I had so much of him in me… and in my daughter. I looked again at the ruined Elm, and this time I saw it. I cried with Hannah for the Elm tree then, and I ached for our loss.
It was Hannah who eventually wore that dead flaky crust off of my heart, and smiled at the shiny green seed inside. This spring she put me back in the dirt where my roots could drink deeply, and she is watching me come back to life. This spring Hannah and I are watching all the green things grow.
Hannah told me that our sun porch could be a greenhouse, and I believed her. We went to buy a few packets of flower seeds and decided to almost clear the shelf. We put six-dozen eggs in a bowl in the fridge so we could fill the cartons with seedlings. We passed the little display of fruit bushes and strawberry shoots and decided to grab one of each of those too. Naomi caught wind of our fever and asked if she could plant some pear seeds from the pear she was eating. I told her they wouldn't grow, but that we had plenty of dirt so she could give it a go if she wanted. And heavens, this spring our sunporch is growing!
And glory be, even the pear seeds came to life with their big, strong leaves pushing up and out and into the sun!
And we all feel just like we have new babies. We're gently watering, and carefully transplanting, and rooting for each seedling because they are growing right in our souls. We're researching D'Anjou Pear trees to make sure we can actually grow these babies, and then, when we find out that D'Anjou Pear trees need to be planted with a Bartlett Pear tree for pollination, we are eating Bartlett Pears as fast as we can and planting ALL the seeds because we REALLY need at least one to grow!
Then, because we didn't have enough things to grow, this week I helped Hannah join the National Arbor Day Foundation, and we are both eagerly anticipating the arrival of her ten free Redbud trees.
"Where exactly are you planning to put all of this stuff?" Matt asked one day.
So we all glared at him like we'd glare at the naysayer who forgets to say "Congratulations" to the mother who has unexpectedly found herself pregnant with a seventh child. And then we sighed and reminded Matt that trees are blessings, not burdens, and that I'm the one who'll be mowing around them anyway. And to this he had no reply. And so it is settled: our yard will be a forest one day.
And my soul will be happy. It will be full of green things, and life, like it should be. And Hannah's soul will grow strong with the trees, just like her mama's did. And if we die trying to keep all these green things alive, at least we'll die happy.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Cono Morning (written fall 2008)
Tender new morning light peeks through my blinds
I hear the familiar thud and padding of feet
Clad in footed princess pajamas
Coming tentatively down the hall
They stop at my door
I pretend to be asleep
Wishing she will give up
And pad her way back to bed
The door cracks open
Through squinted eyes
I see such sweet wispy blond curls
Such hopeful blinking blue eyes
That I can’t help but smile
Her mouth, curled tightly around a shriveled thumb,
Breaks into a grin and her eyes leap with joy
She laughs, dashes for my bed,
Dingy pink blanket dragging behind,
And scrambles up beside me
Snuggling in, she wrinkles her nose in a grin
And nuzzles my face
“I wuv you, Mommy”
I nuzzle back and breathe her hair in
There is a thumping from the hall
A crib rail vigorously thudding back and forth
Then the banging of a sippy cup on the wall
Hannah is delighted, “Emma’s awake!”
I hoist my heavy, pregnant belly out of bed
Hannah runs ahead of me, “I want my juice!”
The banging continues, faster now
“Stop it, Emma!” an annoyed voice calls
Now it is me peeking in their door
Emma is pleased
She smiles, binky dropping from her mouth
And strains to reach me over the crib rail
Naomi rolls in her bed,
Brushes her long, frizzy hair from her face
“Mommy, Emma woke me up”
“Me too” I sigh
Now there are six feet clad in footed jammies
Toddling, thudding eagerly to the kitchen
Jumping in anticipation
As I dole out watered down juice into three sippy cups
They gulp happily
Hannah blinks up at me,
“Mommy is your baby kicking?”
“Not right now”
“Not right now”
“I think our baby is nocturnal” Naomi advises
“My baby’s kicking,” Hannah beams
Then lifts her shirt, “Wanna feel it?”
I place my hand on her tiny, thin tummy
And pretend to feel a kick, she is satisfied
I gaze at their faces, their eyelashes, chapped cheeks
And try to memorize each detail
Some morning I will wake up alone
It will be a foggy memory
I want this morning to be as crisp and alive then
As it is now
Some morning sleep will be plentiful
But there will be no wrinkled, grinning nose to nuzzle mine
No footed jammies to lead me to the kitchen
Some morning this morning will be a memory
Prognosis (Poem for Naomi, written around 2011)
Infinitely complex
Untenably marred
Boundlessly resilient
This child in my arms
Swollen belly
Crooked feet
Crossing eyes
Murmured beat
Liver scarred
Kidney cysts
Endowments of
A genome glitch
Devalued, dismissed
I cradle my girl,
Shielding her spirit
From a misjudging world
Which gene encodes
Her gift for art,
Her passion for books,
Her merciful heart?
What nucleic acid
Could portend
Her affection for horses
Her first best friend?
And which base pair
Might empower
Her compassion for
A frost-nipped flower?
Which locus holds
Her giddy smile?
What helix encrypts
The soul of a child?
What white-coated Einstein,
What world-wide reserve
Of human insight
Can presume her worth?
Infinitely complex
Untenably marred
Beyond their prognosis
A child in my arms
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Wanderlust and Dinner
It isn't that there is anything wrong here
It's more that I am here again
Here at the kitchen sink with my hands in luke-warm water
Scraping bits of sticky dried bread from the bread-maker pans
Again
Here pulling steamy silverware out, putting greasy silverware in
Crunching Rice Chex under my feet and sighing
And sweeping
And wiping
Again
Here filling bread-maker pans with water, oil, and yeast
No measuring spoons needed
Each bit slipping in from memory
And I'm unsure whether this automated accuracy
Amazes or disgusts me
This orchestrated kitchen dance
My pride and my drudgery
Monotony
Mon…o…ton…y…
Lord, I'm gagging here
Gagging on monotony
Send me anywhere, but not to dinner
Not to the quiet, not to the usual
Not to the faithful ordinary
Please, poet friends, take me away
Sarah, Audrey, Andrew, Rich
With my hands in the water
Sing my heart out of this
Lord, help me offer this
Deep breath in
Smile at these tiny hungry taskmasters
Catch them in a hug as they run by
Reign me back from wanderlust
From all the worlds I'd rather spend today in
Heart, don't choke on those sweet lies
Potatoes, wash potatoes
Slice the peppers, thaw the meat
Find the rhythm and the music
In the steady, in the staying
In the never trading them for me
The offering
In a world of leavers leaving
Wandering after their dislocated souls
Stay. Right. Here.
With your hands in the water, dear heart
Stay here and decide to sing
Stay and chop potatoes
Pour yourself out again
And again
In the ordinary
In the never-heroic, rarely-seen, often-snubbed
Dinner
And when you stay, dance
Set a table with stability
Generosity
Less of me
More of "How was your day?"
(I wanted to run screaming from the kitchen but I didn't)
"Are you hungry? I made a plate for you"
"It's in the fridge, do you want me to warm it up now?"
It isn't that I'm doing anything grand here
It's more that I'm cleaning up dinner again
In a world of leavers leaving
Here with my hands in puke-warm water
Elbow-deep in monotony
In less of me
This heart is set on staying
And tonight is set in peace
It's more that I am here again
Here at the kitchen sink with my hands in luke-warm water
Scraping bits of sticky dried bread from the bread-maker pans
Again
Here pulling steamy silverware out, putting greasy silverware in
Crunching Rice Chex under my feet and sighing
And sweeping
And wiping
Again
Here filling bread-maker pans with water, oil, and yeast
No measuring spoons needed
Each bit slipping in from memory
And I'm unsure whether this automated accuracy
Amazes or disgusts me
This orchestrated kitchen dance
My pride and my drudgery
Monotony
Mon…o…ton…y…
Lord, I'm gagging here
Gagging on monotony
Send me anywhere, but not to dinner
Not to the quiet, not to the usual
Not to the faithful ordinary
Please, poet friends, take me away
Sarah, Audrey, Andrew, Rich
With my hands in the water
Sing my heart out of this
Lord, help me offer this
Deep breath in
Smile at these tiny hungry taskmasters
Catch them in a hug as they run by
Reign me back from wanderlust
From all the worlds I'd rather spend today in
Heart, don't choke on those sweet lies
Potatoes, wash potatoes
Slice the peppers, thaw the meat
Find the rhythm and the music
In the steady, in the staying
In the never trading them for me
The offering
In a world of leavers leaving
Wandering after their dislocated souls
Stay. Right. Here.
With your hands in the water, dear heart
Stay here and decide to sing
Stay and chop potatoes
Pour yourself out again
And again
In the ordinary
In the never-heroic, rarely-seen, often-snubbed
Dinner
And when you stay, dance
Set a table with stability
Generosity
Less of me
More of "How was your day?"
(I wanted to run screaming from the kitchen but I didn't)
"Are you hungry? I made a plate for you"
"It's in the fridge, do you want me to warm it up now?"
It isn't that I'm doing anything grand here
It's more that I'm cleaning up dinner again
In a world of leavers leaving
Here with my hands in puke-warm water
Elbow-deep in monotony
In less of me
This heart is set on staying
And tonight is set in peace
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