And now for some better news

My poems “Royal Coachman,” “aloft,” and “Seasons. Change.” are in the new issue of ouroboros review (starting on page 44).

A different kind of evaluation

Did I really only post once in June, and that on the last day of the month? Is June really over? The year half-gone?

I had planned on a mid-year evaluation of this Writing Year, this year I’ve allowed myself to take myself seriously, this year I’ve taken the risk. It’s already there all sketched out in my poetry notebook, the pluses and the minuses and the plays well with others. The list of things I need to focus on for the second half of the year, the places I fall short. I had planned on posting a mid-year evaluation of this Writing Year today, on this last day of June, but on this last day of June we made another trip to the pediatric ER for my second son, the son who goes through life like a Humvee, the son who will scare a year off my life for sure.

He’s fine, like he was last time; he’s got a hard head (words you never want to hear, roughly translated from the German: we need to take an x-ray to rule out a skull fracture, it’s an internal rule when we see this kind of swelling).

But this is what it’s like, being mother to these boys: like a watermelon split open, my protective rind stripped away, all the fleshy fruit red in the sun. A peach, an apricot, all the soft easily bruised flesh on the outside. My first-born, I worry about how the world is going to break his heart, bruise his kind soul. He can be so suddenly, so easily crushed. My second son, I worry about broken bones. The boy has no sense of his boundaries, his limits, his size. I honestly think he has no idea that he is not yet two; I honestly think it does not occur to him that he is not every bit as big as his big brother. The things that will hurt them, these two, they are so different, but in this way they are the same: I cannot hold them at bay.

In no way can I protect my boys from their defining traits. The things that will hurt them - the Small Boy’s big heart and thin skin, Boychen’s all-afterburner-no-rudder approach to life - are also, of course, their greatest strengths. If they’re going to be their brave best selves in the world they will do it by calling on these very traits. Small Boy’s kindness, Boychen’s fearlessness. These are the things that can make them full and rich. These are the things that surely will hurt them. These are the things that make them who they are. These are the things that keep me awake at night, suddenly understanding what it is to be mother to these boys. Like a peach, bruised in transit.

In the pediatric ER

In the pediatric ER

You refuse to entertain
the possibility
that you are small,
that the ladder is too high,
the scooter too fast,
that you are not as big
as your big brother.
That there are things
you cannot do.
So here we sit,
waiting,
for x-rays to clear.

Hungry

When she made a list
of all the things she wanted
she realized she’d have to swallow the world
to even come close.
So she swallowed a snake
to learn from the inside out
how to bite off more
than she can chew.

Of pigeons and poems

What is it about small children chasing pigeons? They all do it, the pigeons always fly away, the children always try again. There are many small disappointments that make my son cry, but the escape of the pigeons has never been one of them. He just laughs and tries again.

That is how it should be to try to write a poem and fail: joyful in the running, laughing when the words slip away irredescent against the sky. We do the same thing, my son and I, though he does not know it yet. We chase after pigeons. Sometimes I catch one.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood*

Sunday: buttermilk pancakes for breakfast, summer skies all day long, boys in a sandbox, and take-out pizza for dinner.

* The format of this post is totally lifted from Christina.

Noticing

Many of Bern’s charms are obvious: the fountain statues, the clock tower,

the long sweep of the Old Town.

But there’s always something else, too, something waiting quietly to be noticed. The cool, narrow Gasschens,

the shop displays,

the tram lines criss-crossing the city.

Everywhere I turn there is something to notice, on those days I remember to notice. It’s like this everywhere; one doesn’t have to live in a five hundred year old city to stop and stare (though I imagine it helps). One just has to stop.

Living with gusto

I could learn a lot about life from this kid.

Springtime in the city

Bern is a green city, a blooming and blossoming city. There are chestnut trees and lillac bushes, apple trees and blossoming trees and shrubs of all description. It is one of the reasons I love living here; in the middle of my busy urban neighborhood with the butcher and the grocery store and the coffee shops and the whole foods shop on the corner there are crows and magpies and all manner of green things.

There is also pollen.

Evening outside my window