Tuesday, July 26, 2016

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.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

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.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

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?

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

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."