Broken

I am broken,

Imperfect

Like every other

Human,

As I should be.

In striving

For perfection,

I fear

Revealing

Me,

The whole,

The light

And 

The dark.

A Love Lost

When I was nine, maybe ten

I met my Great-Great Aunt Lizzie.

She lived alone in Portland,

Not far

However, I had not known of her.

It was hard to imagine

That my aging grandmother

Had an aunt,

Nearly one-hundred,

One who survived the Pandemic of 1918

When many many others did not,

Among them,

My grandmother's sister,

And Aunt Lizzie's love,

The man she was to marry.

A constant reminder of

Tragic young love

Sparkled on her wrinkled finger

Until the day she died.

Longing

Motherless arms

Hold the baby

Free of akward

Juggling,

The newborn

Sinks into

The fleshy cradle

While mother looks on,

Sadness catches in her throat.

Motherless arms

Hold the baby.

Does the longing ever fade?

The Mother Load

I carry the lightness as well as the load that motherhood brings.  It is a part of who I am.  Coming to escape, my children are on my mind. Wandering campus for a place to write, I find an unoccupied picnic table shaded by trees. Settled in I find “MOM!” carved into the surface of the table.  Snickering, I realize, I can never fully escape my maternal role. My heart is filled with the good, the bad and the ugly.  This is the life I chose, a commitment for better and for worse. 

Hope carries me through the anxiety and fear that missteps may narrow the possibilities presented to my children as adults.  This too, is part of growing up.  Even after more than three decades in this mothering role, I too continue to navigate my way in this world, as a wife, mother, and human accepting the messiness that goes along with "adulting."