(this is not a poem)
Guess who just sang in her first big real concert? MEEEEE! "The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down," "Leaving Lousiana," and a new one from songwriter/singer Amy. Tonight our band was called "The Unreliable Sallys" and we had a fantastic bass player, mandolin player, and an electric guitar player. . .and though I felt like a bit of an outsider with such talented musicians, I managed to remember the words and not put my sweaty foot in my mouth.

This is the only picture I have, though the concert was taped. . .our dear friend Kevin snapped it on his cell phone. That's Martin next to me (I'm the white blob in the middle wearing the lucky scarf my mother gave me for my birthday). Special thanks to Kevin and Sally for adopting our daughters all afternoon, bathing them, and making them (and us) feel oh, so loved.

Poem for the Day: Bear About Town

I'm jealous of the big brown bear in my daughter's board book. I long for his tall, European townhouse, where every room sings in plum purples and cherry reds. The rooms are so pretty you want to eat them like hard candy.

Too, I want Bear's town, where everyone waves with innocuous paws that could crush a child in a minute but instead accomplish dainty tasks, like pouring tea, tying tiny apron strings, holding petite packages containing yellow clocks and iced cakes with cherries perched on top.

Fat bumblebees never sting but hover and buzz in the ears of the bears who love them, who love their park with the empty bench and the bunches of balloons held by small bears and grinned upon by old bears.

The bakery, jam-packed with baguettes and impossible chocolate cakes and confections, does not demand money, only a toothy smile, and all the teeth in bear's town are for tearing crusty bread and biting into pies made from plums from Grandma's orchard, studded with candles for a small bear's birthday as his drum-playing cousin bears beat a syncopated racket.

Rabbits, who are just rabbits, live in bushes at the foot of creamy green, teardrop trees, on top of a hill packed with clean Holland-like streets with tulips sprouting from windowsills and a playground that still has a merry-go-round because little bears never break arms or legs or smash their furry heads but play and play until dark under the chimneys of their town that spout nontoxic smoke into a darkening sky full of goodwill and bear acceptance and three striped birds that my daughter counts:

one, two, three,
before we close the book.

Poem for the Day: Sally in the Street

We found the woman in the road,
ironing board waist-level
cutting the pavement in two.
Her eyes reflected our headlights
as she lifted a finger, tested for heat,
fell to the cuff of a blue pinstripe,
hummed as she finished the first sleeve,
nosing the iron under the collar.

Sensing my father's impatience,
my mother scolded, Let her finish.
Let her finish, you hear?
It's hard enough to press a shirt,
let alone in the middle of the night,
in the middle of the road, blinded
like a possum by headlights.
Put the car in park.
My father shut off the engine,
and we sat in sudden silence as the woman
steamed and smoothed, taking her time
with two tucks in the back, skirting
around buttons and snapping
the shirt at last, and the noise was like
a sail catching wind. When we saw her slip
over the curb and into nowhere,
board tucked under her arm,
the shirt lingered stark
against the darkness, and we smelled
starch and heat, heard hiss and shudder,
longed for warm sleeves, for crisp cotton
over stomach and under chin.

Poem for the Day: Motherhood

Startling awake in the morning,
I wonder that my life is this one all around me,
the smells in the kitchen, my body marked and mapped
by babies and garden work and sitting too long to write.
I notice more every day, how nothing is shadowed
but whole and solid, how the frozen lilac branches
soften, bud, embarrass us with fragrance.
Faces are precious things I pick up and hold,
feeling their contours against the bones of my chest,
releasing them into deep sky.
Will they be the clouds I see when I am very old,
will they return to me in the glitter of dew,
in the clear waters of Jackson Run,
swollen with snowmelt and rain, warming in late afternoon
when the children run down with their nets,
hoping for whales, treasure, a wriggling minnow,
something that they can touch and call their own.

for Kara, on her thirty-third birthday

My dear Kara, childhood friend, soulmate and delight of my heart,
I just wrote you a poem for your birthday, and if that's not enough
here are two of your nieces, including your godchild, offering you
a perfect daffodil, plucked in early spring in your honor.

Cleveland Pear on an April Evening

Tonight we stopped the car,
opened the windows, drew in breath
at the world of white lace
cut through by ebony bark.
With the windows down
it was all as real as we'd hoped.

and one more. . .

!

Okay, I know I'm a bit late, but I'm thinking of trying to write one poem a day for National Poetry Month. I've still got most of April. . .I wrote mine for today, about Old Henry's ashes, and I'm thinking about continuing with the burial/cremation theme. How cheery for spring!
Anyone want to join me? It can be super-short and crazy-bad. But you'll be supporting Poetry. I'd make a more compelling case but Old Henry burned up all my time, and now I'm being summoned to find a very specific book. Must tear off.

wishing

Tonight, down the hill at the picnic table: smoke from a dying fire, the voices of adults sitting on camp chairs, shouts from the children having a last swing before bedtime. I look up into a warm dark sky. Through the bare branches of the black walnut, the moon curves and the stars come out. A child's voice: "Star light, star bright. . ." And later, walking up the stairs to the house, laden with empty cups and leftovers, Elspeth and Bea and I look up at the stars again. I try to think of what to wish for, and the first thing that comes to my mind is a vague wish for ever more successes in my writing, but then Elspeth says, "For sweet dreams!" and my perspective shifts from my exhausted wishing for more to a gentler hope for lasting, good things, for the happiness of those I love and yes, for a sweet sleep this night.

Forsythia

My dears, find a day white as muslin,
and in that day, open your hand,
see on your palm golden stars,
toss them along the road
that stretches from your feet to the sky,

shake the sky like a sheet,
oh, the air is full of sparkle,
the laughter of your daughters,
the running of their feet.

Spitting like a little mad dog

I just poured hot water from the kettle into my cracked green cup. Time for the nightly chamomile and and spearmint tea, the cap to every day, no matter how long, happy, or miserable. I'm sure the tea will soothe me tonight, but when I replaced the smudged kettle, I stopped a moment in the dark kitchen to put my head in my hand. Inside, I feel a nagging heaviness, the lingering consequence of an explosion in my chi this morning.

I'd taken a few minutes to write and when I turned around, the downstairs was a mess. The girls had been enjoying themselves, and proof of their jovial time was all around me. Every room had been tipped on its side, and though it was gorgeous outside, we'd not only have to dress and ready everyone, but then we'd have to clean up. And cleaning is soooooo boring. Though the girls are independent and can do a fairly good job cleaning, I've been picking up after children for almost ten years now (I can hear you seasoned parents scoffing). Sometimes I just want to stuff it all.

"Who wants to clean ALL DAY?" I demanded. "Not me! Let's get going here!" I asked Elspeth to tidy, but instead she did things like roll around on the ground and set her pencils in a pattern on the kitchen table. I could feel the tension building up inside, and I knew I'd be sorry later, but the wave hit me full in the face and I started spitting.

It was not a pretty sight, especially when my anger hit the utterly ridiculous repetitive stage and I stuttered, "Put it away! Put it away! Put it away!" Ad infinitum, and so on and so on. I heard Bea in the adjoining room wondering aloud, "Why she saying, 'Put it away, Put it away?'"

Not a pretty sight. After I'd yelled for a bit, I felt a headache creeping up the front of my skull. Not surprising.

And then it was all over and I was talking on the phone and showering and the girls watched Sesame Street and we all went for a lovely walk.

But I just hate it when I lose my temper. As always, I apologized. Seeing your child's face crumple in bewildered grief when you yell has to be the worst thing in the whole world. Why can't I be chill all the time, and controlled, and cool, and surf the top of every swell? Why do I end up under the wave, rolling, hitting the sand, my suit full of seaweed and my nose full of saltwater?

Maybe I should develop a coping twitch like the pitcher I'm watching at the moment. Somebody from Detroit. He's got a whole set of crazy little things he does before every pitch. Tug on the ball cap, spit, shrug, shrug again. The kids would see me twitching and they'd know to jump to attention. Watch out for Mommy. She's warming up. She's doing her thing. No yelling required.

the day

Things I did on my & Bea's birthday included:

played racquetball (worked on my wrist action)

went for four brisk walks outside, two of those with two little kids smashed into one stroller, arms around each other, grinning into the other's face like they were on their honeymoon as we flew down one hill after the other

ate a delicious lunch at my friend, Sal's house, followed by a delectable chocolate cake

sized up the various boxes in our front hallway that arrived in the post

helped a bunch of first and second graders wipe the excess paper mache off newspaper strips to plaster their very first volcanoes

folded a load of laundry

found, in my mailbox, a glorious bouquet of purple and yellow flowers wrapped in an embarassment of pink tissue paper

paid our bills

chatted over the fence with a kind, bearded man whose three boys swung on our gate and exhanged warm hugs with a friend, T, in the windy parking lot of St. Ann's preschool

read a card from Sal that made me tear up a little. . .and opened some really beautiful stained glass butterflies

tried on my newest thrift store T shirt, Abraham Lincoln with florescent green earphones and a turn-table

proofed my short story, "Patron Saint of Trees" that will soon go to print at Southeast Review--hurrah!

dropped by two littlest daughters at Elesha's house for pizza, where I later found them snug on the couch with Elesha, looking at photos of China

sat in Dairy Queen booth, eating a huge vanilla soft serve cone while Bea covered herself in chocolate icecream and seven kids tore around, high on sugar

talked to my mother, my father, my sister, my sister-in-law, my brother, my mom and dad-in-law on the phone (six different happy birthdays!)

drank tea and chatted away a morning with my dear friend, Nancy Greenthumb

ate reheated ham and mashed potatoes on the couch with Martin while watching "Scrubs"

bathed all day in sunshine and the oceans of love washing over me from all of you, my family and friends, my whole world of goodness.

To the Day

This is how I spent my thirtieth birthday:

I'd prefer to remember it as one of the more intense celebrations I've had, and hope to heaven that nobody I know is planning anything similar for me this birthday.
*
Thirty-three years ago to the day, I started existing on this earth:

According to my mother, I was a funny-looking baby. But then again, so was the child who shares my birthday:

Here she is, catching some wind on the Edmonds Ferry in Washington State.

Check out that hair, dudes. No product required.

Three years ago to the day, Beatrix made her way down the tunnel and plopped into the midwife's arms.
I've often thought, This child is just too good to be true. But she is true, and it's her birthday.

I hope she is given as much happiness in her next thirty years as I have experienced in mine. She is blessed by all who love her, and to you, her family and community, I am deeply grateful.

This Pot's Bubbling Over

Oh, it's so grey again (sing with me). It's ever so grey and rainy today! Yesterday we spent all hours outside--even rain didn't drive the children inside, just prompted them to kick off their shoes, and in Beatrix's case, ALL her clothes.

Inside, there are three roses the color of velvet Christmas ribbon; one faces me, the other is taking in the rain, and the third faces the piano, as if waiting for someone to sit down and play. Last night our house was fairly bouncing with people and the scent of ham and mashed potatoes and homemade apple sauce--an early Easter feast--and now the table is cleared, the laundry tumbling below floor, and the children are lounging about lazily on the couch watching "educational" TV.

And my mind tumbles like the laundry too. I can't believe I sent that story exclusively to Prairie Schooner and didn't change the cover letter that noted it was a simultaneous submission! Guess who received a highlighted copy of the Writer's Guidelines in her SASE yesterday afternoon? I'm just kicking myself. Oh! A cardinal! There are horrible things happening in Cote d'Ivoire and the sadness goes on in Japan. . .I need to to e-mail so-and-so about tea, ARG! ALARM! Have not written my column yet and the deadline is tomorrow! WASH the soccer socks! Wash the soccer socks!

I will not subject you to the ongoing panic in my brain. A few of us sat outside the other week trying to answer this question: If your brain were a room, what would it contain?

Our nine-year old friend, Cat, said her brain contained file drawers. Merry accessed her brain and found two easy chairs with a table in between them (sounds good to me!) My mother swings the door to her brain and finds a giant tiramisu with endless layers of pastry that hide facts from her until she reaches in and fishes one out. Martin's brain is the craziest of all: he's got a game show host talking constantly inside, and his life-long struggle is to shut that guy up. My brain contains multiple industrial stoves with hundreds of pots bubbling. I often forget what a pot contains until I lift the lid and the steam clouds my face. Oh! Blast! There's my cloudy, misshapen column bubbling around in there. It needs vegetables, meat, seasoning! What have I been thinking, and with so many people arriving for dinner! I don't even have a recipe yet!

My dream is to climb into one of those pots and linger for a while and not go onto the next pot until one soup is finished. But it is not to be right now. Today, griping between the two youngest girls started at breakfast and continued afterward. As Martin exited the house, I said, "When you come back tonight, if you find the children plucked and hanging by their ankles, you'll know why."

As I hauled more laundry downstairs, I thought, Just wait until they're all gone, and then I realized, they won't be moving out, just going off to school, and now I amend that thought: You don't really want complete silence for the rest of your life, do you? And the image of Elspeth cuddling into the crook of my arm after she read her first book out loud yesterday fills me. She said, "I want to marry you and Daddy, and then I wouldn't ever have to leave you when I grow up." Martin and I reassured her: "You don't ever have to leave if you don't want to." And we said this knowing that the time will come when she will be anxious to leave, and she'll run off with her face turned fully toward the blooms and branching of her own life, and we'll be the ones looking after her. We'll be sad.

But not so sad we'll sit at home and mope. No, siree; we have dreams of a little retreat in Oregon with a tea pot, winding paths through forest, and two chairs on the porch where we'll edit our manuscripts together.

But for now, a shower, some column acrobatics, and a trip to the library. We will jump into the grey mist outside, and we will warm it with our happiness.

Hang the unfinished things! It's sunny and warm and I'm going out!

Overheard: in the parking lot of Eat'nPark and inside same restaurant, respectively

(A) "Why are you yelling and crying over a pink bunny cookie?"

. . .and. . .

(B) "Good thing I'm a brain surgeon, otherwise I'd be out of luck."

I overheard both of the above in the space of one hour. Can any of you come up with a story to go with either one?