Another mother poem: mother psalm 8
October 15, 2010
MOTHER PSALM 8
When all else fails, a stroll will put you to sleep.
We walk beneath trees still mostly green, here
and there a branch burst into purple flame, until
Whole Foods looms glossy at the sidewalk's end.
We load into the basket beneath your sleeping form
a pumpkin and a gourd hooked like a swan's neck.
All the way there my sister and I talk about marriage
and I wonder with whom you'll walk like this someday
remembering aloud the house you grew up in, our
spiral staircases, the boxes of dolls in the basement.
The minute we stop, you wake; I pepper your head
with kisses, try to adjust your already-drooping socks.
It's autumn in Newton. My muddy iced coffee is the last
of the season. Little man, you can move yourself now
across the floor with intent, though you pause and sit
contemplating whether the ball that's rolled away
is worth the effort of the journey. It's always worth
the effort of the journey: the ball, the book, the child
you may someday try to raise, as clueless as we.
Make your way across the room. Pluck sweetness
from every interaction, extract smiles from strangers.
Go get it: we're cheering each painstaking step you take.
This week's prompt at Big Tent Poetry is a wordle word cloud, from which I chose the words gourd, hook, purple, kiss, drooping, staircase, muddy, doll, extract, glossy, and pluck (the only word I didn't manage to work in was "bitter.")
This is the latest in my series of mother poems. Of the forty-three mother poems I've written so far, eight take the form of psalms, and this is the latest of those.
I'm really loving the experience of writing one mother poem each week. Recently I've been working on my Torah poems manuscript (stay tuned for more information on that, later this fall) and it seems to me that this is a really good way for me to work. The discipline of writing one poem each week is good for me, and the desire to find something new each week stretches me in good ways. Plus, of course, I enjoy knowing that I get to share a draft with all of y'all!
Here's this week's Come one, come all post -- check out the comments to see what others did with this wordle prompt.