Poems from the Porch

excerpts

Scribbled on scraps of paper, napkins and notebooks, these short poems were written between mind-bending moments of becoming a mother ~ in the first three months of our baby’s life, outside the womb. I explore what it means to be a woman, a mother, a daughter; what it means to live, to die and to transform; and reckoning the turning point of the ages with birthing new life. I wrote hundreds of short poems in those first few months (the winter of 2022), from a rocking chair on the porch, among the changing seasons, bird song and sunshine, and here I am including a few from that greater collection of poems I am calling Poems from the Porch.

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Woman
carries the future 
on her hip
shaped like
crescent moon, she
carries Life - 
Why 
do we not revere her?

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these trees were sleeping
when we arrived
frenzied in the night.

now green buds
dance on branch tips
and a child
sleeps in my arms

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everything
about woman
is multi -
generational

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green light emerges
from the earth.
the spruce tips sway
like kelp in the sea.
that slowly,
turning winter
to spring

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everyone is moving
online,
the new frontier.

i remain here
floored 
by the spacious presence
of these trees

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when you lived
inside my womb
everything changed
from “me” to “we”
and all around us
the world
was on fire

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the wind of the mind
can destroy 
villages of our loved ones.
   tame that wind

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when you realize
humanity
is hanging on 
by a thread

and 

you’ve just
given birth

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stretching thin
the old
dimensions of my being;
change doesn’t 
always come
so easy

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what if
we moved
as slow
as the clouds?

gathering water
weaving light

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trust in the Space
where everything seems
to appear
and disappear

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the horses and the wind
stand still
completely still.
someone wiggles
in my arms
like a fish, and
i remember the smell
of our lakehouse,
my grandpa’s hands
and the green water

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carving new pathways
for the cosmos to travel
through this body-mind.

her skin is soft and warm
curled into mine -
what will remain?

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