Tag: childhood

poetry

Lost Bounce

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Photo by Amanda Pampuro of Courthouse News.

Lost Bounce

Inspired by a prompt from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s Loving the Self: A Poetry Playshop.

the sight of all the burned-out trampolines
flipped over, blown far from their families
silver u’s sticking into the air
like uncomfortable metal bridgework
puts a little hollowness in me these days –
you know there are not-laughing children
to go with each one

trampoline, you raise us up and encircle us
make a safe-ish place to be wild
test limits and bump up against our edges
you launch us into that part of childhood
that’s more about risk than safety
and make a quiet screened place
to whisper with friends

black and blue and endlessly round
you teach us how to lighten up
and we feel the pleasure of becoming buoyant
internalize that we are capable
of reaching much greater heights
than we ever thought

we love you for your whiff of danger
the broken clips and snagged nets
blue borders always shredding away to nothingness
your tenuous connection to earth
and warm embrace of sky

our muscles absorb how to bounce back
we integrate the feel of resilience
how to float and sink and go
with what the moment demands
rather than stiffly thudding through each jolt and jar

so each abandoned naked metal circle
makes my mouth go sour
makes my heart sink a touch lower

poetry

birthday season

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birthday season

we’re so glad you’re here
your spark makes our lives glow
and since you drew your first breath
things have never been the same

we’re saying this
with candles and cards
wrapping and ribbon
doughnuts and ice cream
Sharpie on the door jamb
marking your ascent into adulthood
friends and family stopping by
to throw the floodlight of their love
squarely in your grinning face

every year we mark the miracle
that you arrived at all
(and better yet – you are amazing
and better still – we still breathe together
now)

poetry

weeping cherry

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After I wrote this I found a photographer who was willing to take a picture of the weeping cherry tree, but it had already dropped its blooms. Maybe next year… Thanks to Rozanne Lee Anderson-Moreland for the photos.

weeping cherry

the most thoughtful gift
I’ve ever been given
she was a First Communion miracle
planted just for me

8 years old
our heights about matched
we grew up together
her hot pink flowers lit up the spring
and one year when she was little
robins nested in the heart of her crown

I never named her

five years later we grew apart
divorce took me to a smaller home
without a tree to call my own
but I still visited
still had a claim on that piece of earth

now, with my father gone,
the house and tree
willed to his wife,
she’s another thing I could lose any day

if I could have anything from that home place
I’d take a photo of her now
in marvellous bloom
higher than the house

also perpetual permission to trespass
to lay my bones down
on Walnut Creek shale
whenever it calls

poetry

Where I’m From

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This poem uses a format George Ella Lyon has invited others to borrow to tell the story of where they are from.

Where I’m From

I am from newsprint
from Deep Woods Off! and Coppertone
three Rust Belt houses
moving up and down the social ladder
(the smell of the neighbor’s
lily-of-the-valley in the spring)
I am from creek shale and grapevine
twined into forts and swings
I’m from homemade applesauce
and too much booze
from Thomas Francis Browns
and William Joseph Schaafs
I’m from the secret-keepers
and the never-satisfieds
from the optimism of Good morning, morning glory!
and the poverty of That’s from hunger
I’m from Lenten incense, shamrock Trinities
I’m from Erie and Éire
from lake perch and cinnakuka
from the shot-up tail
of the Luck of the Irish B-17
that spared by German grandfather
and humid summers at the Shore
when Grandy showed me Saturn’s rings
the long wood shelves above my dad’s childhood desk
held the spiral-bound scrapbooks
with my grandfather’s cases and speeches
yellowed and tearing
charisma my father would never match
I am from immigrant industry
all of us broken
and heartsick for land

poetry

stuffy confidential

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stuffy confidential

slowly they come to tell me the news
a parade of fuzzy confidences:
Pete
Kiki
Mr. Fuzzles
Yip-Yappin’ Coyote (the Yip-Yappin’ Yapster)

I snuggle them one by one
pat each bottom like a baby perched on my shoulder
listen close as they whisper in my ear
touch my nose to their synthetic fur
to breathe in childhood
and the relief of de-stressing distress
look into all the beautiful brown eyes in the room
and nod

I’m here
I’m listening
you are loved