it gets worse / better
Inspired by a prompt from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s Loving the Self: A Poetry Playshop.
gazing into the fire
asking what do you have to teach me today?
all I hear is
the old toddler parenting mantra
it gets worse
before it gets better
friends
it could always get worse
but what if we willed ourselves to believe
today we’re one day closer to better?
whether to know
two ways today I’m asked
if I want to know
what’s in the air we’re breathing
and the answer is
I don’t know
because we can’t stop bringing it into our bodies
and we aren’t the type to pick up and move
the numbers may tell us
what we don’t want to hear
but if we don’t know
at least we don’t know
Margaret says,
We’re doomed. And?
Sarah says,
Don’t give your worries swimming lessons.
I say,
When can I just breathe easy?
And, will my children ever?
Annie’s Story
when her 8-year-old son kept saying
I don’t want to die today
she calmly explained
that wouldn’t happen
they were safe
the fire was a long way away
they would leave if it ever got close
a few hours later
trapped in gridlock
with the smoke plumes getting darker
her family split between
different cars and departure times and friends
she’s nearly overcome by the unbearableness of
stasis in the midst of terror
jammed in this long line of sitting ducks
straddling gas tanks
so she asks the traffic control lady
if she’s still going the best way,
and the lady shakes her head and says,
there are a lot of people getting hurt up there
(which later proved to be false,
but then she’d no way to know)
afraid to learn exactly how close the flames are now
she wills herself not to check the messages on her phone
instead she calls her National Guard brother
pleading for him to find her an exit
thinking to herself
I don’t want to die today
but even with his emergency ops experience
and all the info he is calm enough to marshal
all her brother can tell her is stay where she is –
north is the only way
now she says, everyone miraculously safe,
things aren’t the same
sometimes it’s like my nervous system is outside my body
she says
like there is no buffer between the world and me
I will never leave my husband’s side in an emergency again
she says
I wanted us to be together if something happened
I will never wait for an evacuation order again
she says
by the time they order you it’s too late
the roads are packed solid
I’m glad I took my rings
but I didn’t really need my wedding photos –
more of those exist
my main regret is I didn’t grab my grandmother’s box
it goes between my mom and uncles
so they have turns with her memories
my mom had loaned it to me
and I would have let them down
if I’d let it burn
one of the hardest moments was
picking up my daughter from her friend’s.
she asked me if our home was gone
and all I could say was
I don’t know
It wasn’t
I’m one of the lucky ones
and I’m still crying every day
absence limits
while on the Zoom
I see him through the window
pouting
elbows right angles
palms pushing the sky
after the laptop snaps shut
he bursts in
bellowing his high-pitched objections
until I wrap my arm around him
ruffle his hair
remind him how much he means
ask how I can help
and
what does he need?
then he relents
admits he needs nothing
I just was absent too long
that toddler abides
who insistently demanded
Mommy…
anytime I pressed the rectangle of phone
to my curlicue of ear
while he tried to drown out the sounds
of any other needs
to reserve some space
for whatever might bubble up
between his shoulder blades
oh he needs something alright
just like me
This is in response to a prompt from Radha Marcum’s workshop Write Your Life in Poetry offered by the Boulder Public Library.
Red-naped Sapsuckers, Early July
you can’t help but hear them
the insatiable insistent peeping
hungry beaks open and shut
almost as fast as hummingbird wings
inside a perfectly round O
perforating smooth beige aspen bark
with binoculars you can peek inside
and after a few seconds of dark blank staring
a small striped head and desperate beak
pop up into view
like the start of a puppet show
now and then she collapses
then eventually works her way
eye-level with her window on the world again
her pleas the same tempo and volume
wherever she is
the dogged parents fly in and out
red crests and napes brilliant
against backlit aspen emerald green
on approach they issue a rough nasal call
swoop in, load the mouths
take a deep breath
look out toward their next dead tree to loot
then fly off with great up-and-down flap-glides
it gets easier
I want to tell them
you should talk to the hairy woodpeckers
just up the road
their handsome son just joined them
out in the trees
and he calmly plink-calls them
now and then while they hunt together
and enjoy each other’s company
while sometimes just listening
to the quiet ruffle of wind
through needles and feathers
but the ragged sapsuckers don’t have time
to even listen to our encouragement –
the little mouths never stop begging
and the hole is never filled
eclipse on a night with no moon
we scaled the peak to watch her rise
but found a bank of clouds
draped over the eastern foothills
chilled and sleepy
we descended home
sure we would see her on the way
but the sky stayed a blank pink
then blue then grey
marked by a star a moth a bat
we lit our sparklers instead
scrawled our hopes across
night’s blank page
signed ephemeral pledges in smoke
still she didn’t wink at us
after the boys surrendered to sleep
I set a timer to check on her
but the clouds had swung round to the south
and the only evidence that she was up
was the thin silver tracery
around each small cloud
maybe some nights
she doesn’t want to be seen
just wants to hide in her own corner of sky
and be nothing to nobody
just reflect on her time warmed by Sol’s rays
dream her own quiet icicle-mint dreams
not worry about those worrying about her
just slip away in the dark
no matter who might be wistfully watching
after the trifecta
after all these days weeks months years
we still genuinely like each other
(harder to achieve than loving)
for this and all the other joys
that have come along with
these three main lights in my life
may I always feel grateful and blessed
even in dark hours
mine or theirs or ours
you’d never give up on me
he says
no, I wouldn’t
I agree
may it always be so
even when the road’s nearly washed out
and the lightning’s going sideways
and the rain’s a perpendicular blur
there’s always the distinct possibility
we’re headed straight toward rainbow
Double-digit Cedar
he wants a world
where all the pieces fit
where positive and negative balance
and everything adds up
but he also does his best
to quadruple his luck
dousing himself at the spring
he surrounds himself
with cute and fuzzy
and finds new ways
to leap off windowsills
and hammock extremely
and he finds a way into
any mud puddle out there
his sweetness matches his size
and although he’s getting closer
to eye-level every day
he still comes and finds me at the spruce
still joins me under the canopy of sky
still shares his stuffy wealth with me
still is my little son
with the extra big heart
meeting Camilo the green-cheeked conure
his little golden body hesitated
then his small pale beak
gently probed my index knuckle
and, finding it firm, fleshed, human
(though likely not as kind as my son’s)
he bridged the gap
between my son and me
straddling his hand and mine
then stepped over
accepting me enough
to enter my sphere
what joy
to hold another life
sweet as pineapple rings
glowing like sunset
to be found worthy of trust
at least for that moment
in this world
split into us and other
with limitless capacity
for cruelty,
like my sons
this little bird reaches out to me
and holds my hand
entrusts himself to my care
allows us
a chance to be gentle with each other
to see life
from another eye-level
