(re)creation
Apr. 22nd, 2004 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
falcongrrlToday was a beautiful spring day, the perfect day to go to the park with my friend P. We had planned to take my daughter and spend a relaxing afternoon there, eating lunch, letting her play on the playground, and finding some time to write. P was bringing a book of writing exercises for poetry to inspire us.
Except that nothing ever works that smoothly. I needed to pick up my son (D) early from our co-op preschool due to logistics, because one of my good friends and a member of the co-op had a baby at 4am early this morning. We decided to eat lunch at my (woefully messy) house because my daughter (E) was napping and pick D up before we went to the park.
So...at about 3pm we ended up arriving at the park, instead of the 12pm we had tentatively planned. We got out legal pads, pencils, our book of ideas.
But then we were feeding both kids lunch, and keeping E from running completely out of the park, and refereeing my son's play with another boy who had come there with a young man I thought was his brother, though D swears the boy called him dad.
There was keeping D from licking the table, and E from dropping things on the ground and picking them up and eating them. There was the moment when D poured a container of bubbles on E's head, or when he half-lifted/half dragged her, both of them laughing, across the playground while saying, "She's not heavy at all."
There were all the things that are part of being a mother and being at the park. It's crazy, but I somehow forget what it's like every time, how fun yet how all-consumingly difficult, until I'm there doing it again and suddenly remember.
Incredibly, amid the chaos P and I did get some brainstorming done, prewriting for one of the exercises in the book.
And after arriving home, I worked and worked on rewrites, in between diaper changes and scenes from Treasure Planet. Now I actually have a finished poem, although I don't even know if I like it, if it was worth all the time I spent on it.
On this day, the day when my friend pushed a beautiful child into the world and watched her take her first breath, I celebrated by going to the park with my own children, revelling in the joys of spring, and writing a poem.
Somehow it fits.
A+
********************************************************************************
earth mother
my classmate
slung rats against a desk
in some high school how-to speech
on care and feeding.
my dad
sliced through heads with hoes
in the grassy backyard
because they kill.
my son
longs to catch and keep one,
dreams of holding it aloft triumphant.
they bite, I say,
sensing danger, urging caution.
“goddess”
is my friend’s greeting.
and perhaps in truth she is,
for we fear her.
one means infinity
two intertwined, healing
a bite brings death
or trance-formations
liquid bloodless boneless being
you slip
through categorizations.
we hate you as we hate ourselves,
anything uncontained.
even those who claim you,
your smooth fluidity
draped seductively,
seldom grasp your essence.
turn yourself inside-out.
in shedding us,
our wordcages,
may you emerge
holy
reborn.
Except that nothing ever works that smoothly. I needed to pick up my son (D) early from our co-op preschool due to logistics, because one of my good friends and a member of the co-op had a baby at 4am early this morning. We decided to eat lunch at my (woefully messy) house because my daughter (E) was napping and pick D up before we went to the park.
So...at about 3pm we ended up arriving at the park, instead of the 12pm we had tentatively planned. We got out legal pads, pencils, our book of ideas.
But then we were feeding both kids lunch, and keeping E from running completely out of the park, and refereeing my son's play with another boy who had come there with a young man I thought was his brother, though D swears the boy called him dad.
There was keeping D from licking the table, and E from dropping things on the ground and picking them up and eating them. There was the moment when D poured a container of bubbles on E's head, or when he half-lifted/half dragged her, both of them laughing, across the playground while saying, "She's not heavy at all."
There were all the things that are part of being a mother and being at the park. It's crazy, but I somehow forget what it's like every time, how fun yet how all-consumingly difficult, until I'm there doing it again and suddenly remember.
Incredibly, amid the chaos P and I did get some brainstorming done, prewriting for one of the exercises in the book.
And after arriving home, I worked and worked on rewrites, in between diaper changes and scenes from Treasure Planet. Now I actually have a finished poem, although I don't even know if I like it, if it was worth all the time I spent on it.
On this day, the day when my friend pushed a beautiful child into the world and watched her take her first breath, I celebrated by going to the park with my own children, revelling in the joys of spring, and writing a poem.
Somehow it fits.
A+
********************************************************************************
earth mother
my classmate
slung rats against a desk
in some high school how-to speech
on care and feeding.
my dad
sliced through heads with hoes
in the grassy backyard
because they kill.
my son
longs to catch and keep one,
dreams of holding it aloft triumphant.
they bite, I say,
sensing danger, urging caution.
“goddess”
is my friend’s greeting.
and perhaps in truth she is,
for we fear her.
one means infinity
two intertwined, healing
a bite brings death
or trance-formations
liquid bloodless boneless being
you slip
through categorizations.
we hate you as we hate ourselves,
anything uncontained.
even those who claim you,
your smooth fluidity
draped seductively,
seldom grasp your essence.
turn yourself inside-out.
in shedding us,
our wordcages,
may you emerge
holy
reborn.