Adventures in Parenting
Flowers have no muscles
yet they move
open / close
smile at the sun
kiss the sky goodnight
How is it possible?
Have you ever thought about this?
Only through their emptiness
are they able to be filled
The water of life coursing through their veins
gives them strength
Help me remember this
when I am parched and drooping
but refuse to drink
Fill me with this aqua vitae
give my spirit life
make my body rise again
to gaze at the sun
I grow my garden
wild and free
I do not expect
it bow to me
My joy it is
to watch it bloom
Nor do I wish
its beauty to consume
to cut and cull
alone preserve
no longer in the wind and sun
to dance and curve
Not for me it is
to choose the day
nor the colour it shall bloom
So many shades of beauty
wild and free
Though I was the one
to plant the seeds
my garden does not belong to me
The faces of old friends
grow dearer with each passing year
Every wrinkle a trace of their joy
and sorrow
a reminder of the fragility of life
bittersweet
Precious and dear
the ones we love
Each grey hair adds to their beauty
for time adds to the treasure house of memories
we share with them–
they are ever more familiar
and beloved
See the woman walking
light as air–
her wings filling up with the wind,
canvas shopping-bag sails dancing in the sun.
An easy, breezy escape
for 10 minutes,
popping over to the corner gas station
–alone!–
to pick up lemonade ice-tea
for her temporarily bed-bound husband
who had this special request.
She walks along in the sun
smelling the city scent of spice and cement,
free enough to notice such things
without the usual tangled parade of double stroller,
the baby in snuggly
and other kids marching two by two.
She wonders what the chances are
that she’ll get to capture
the poetry of this ordinary moment
when she arrives home
to 80,000 questions
like “Why is blood red?
What is the sun made of?
What do we do before we are born?”
and “Can I have a ‘peeburrer samich’ nooooooow?”
An obnoxious car cuts her off to turn through the crosswalk on her light
–keeping it real–
lest in her pondering she float off into the brilliant blue sky
to alight on the snow-covered mountain tops that beckon in the distance
to this winged creature:
a woman alone for a walk.
Source of pleasure
Source of pain
Winner’s triumph
Loser’s bane
Full of visions
No one sees
Except the one who has the key
Can you guess it? I’d love to hear! Might be trickier than the last two… 😉
Starts as a small spark
in dark waters–
surrounded by silence
save for the constant beating of a drum,
which it echos–
two as close as one.
Can you guess it? Let me know! 🙂 It was such fun getting your responses to yesterday’s riddle!
Soft as a lamb but you can’t touch it,
has no eyes but it can weep,
owned by no man
ever moving
over mountains high
and valleys deep.
The kids and I have been enjoying reading The Hobbit aloud. We just did the chapter where Bilbo and Gollum have a riddle guessing contest, and had a ball doing spooky voices for Gollum…till the kids got so creeped out I had to change his part to a cowboy voice to make them laugh! Poor Gollum will never be the same…
I was inspired to write a riddle. Can you guess it? Let me know in the comments! 🙂
Let it go, little mamma.
You have deeply entered their pain,
lived it with them,
prayed and suffered.
Their burden is not yours.
You can love
but you cannot hold the whole world
in your heart.
Don’t try to steal God’s job.
Only He, the eternal one,
can bear all the world’s suffering
without breaking to pieces…
Your call now,
is to go dig in your garden
and plant flowers of hope
in the simple brown earth.
Your call is to smile again
and find joy in the little gifts of each day.
Tears have washed you clean.
Now, little mama,
let it go,
trust more,
be silly and laugh again.
The trees are so stable,
their moods have such endurance.
They hold on for months
to the bare bitterness of winter,
the silence,
the absence of even a rustling leaf.
Then the trees embrace the sweet joyfulness of spring
in a long coquettish smile,
a blossom-blush lasting months.
Afterwards, the trees sail into the smooth serenity of summer,
wearing their regal wreaths with proud satisfaction.
Even the flaming, flickering colours of fall flash across their faces for months,
the trees, with their moods more stable than mine,
for I am but a tiny body of water
wrapped in skin.
My thinly guarded surface subject to tremors of wind,
the harassment of a sudden hailstorm
or the steady pounding of rain.
I’ve been know to get icicles in my eyelashes
tears of pain frozen before fully released.
Some things are better to let go of quickly.
In all this variable moodiness,
this passionate intensity and depth of feeling,
I am not alone,
for are we not all but small bodies of water
(97% H2O)
wrapped in skin,
the tides in our hearts tugged about by not just the moon,
but by the moods of all the other bodies of water
bumping around us
in this space
that is earth.
So many times
life in a large family
is like swimming in the ocean
tossed about by salty waves,
trying to catch your breath between tantrums.
Then there are those moments of glory
when your kids are all getting along
and the baby is sleeping while your eldest girls
do a duet on their ukuleles.
That moment is one of perfect rest,
like you’ve climbed upon a wooden raft,
the waveworn wood smooth against your skin,
the sun’s warm weight on your back.
At that moment you question nothing.
Self-doubt sinks below the waves
and you float there
–happy–
trusting for that moment
that everything is grace.
