Date

A mommy-son date:
French fry, salty offering
of companionship
dropped in the void between seats.
"Try again, Mom." Simple faith.

Prayer

I started tweeting the following set of senryu as a way of thinking about prayer as conversation between me and God (staggering concept).  This process of writing about prayer has since become a way of prayer for me.

Coffee in one hand
leaning in to share, listen:
How I talk to God.

"Momma, you’re special."
Three-year-old touches my cheek.
How God talks to me.

While driving I make
lists: done, do, hope, love, hate, try.
How I talk to God.

Above the highway
hawk: high, alone, free, focused.
How God talks to me.

Rash, impetuous
chatter, followed by silence:
How I talk to God.

First, second, third, fourth
chance to hear, then another:
How God talks to me.

Pulling from my heap
of words, the ones that mean yes:
How I talk to God.

Infinite connects
with finite, without words:
How God talks to me.

Fetal position
under flannel sheets, weeping
How I talk to God

Moonlight on pillow
tending to my open wounds
How God talks to me

I'm not (senryu times five)

I want you to know
I'm not brave or strong or sure
and still adore me.

I'm not brave, I just
know how to be, completely
still, waiting, silent.

I'm not strong, I'm just
attached like a barnacle
on wave beaten rock.

I'm not sure, I am
willing you to convince me
to be that woman.

For you I'll become
all you think I am (I'm not)
and prove us both wrong.

In response to Medusa

Doris was black like midnight in December.
She used to have hair like a white girl,
straightened with auburn highlights.
Saw her on a bus one day in Disney World,
of all places, round dark face
somehow brighter with an internal purpose,
her hair gone, cropped close to her crown.

Doris told me how she had wrestled with death
and won – for now – and in so wrestling faced
her true self and saw hate in her eyes,
that by straightening her hair she was hating
how she was born with thick course African hair,
she needed to be who she was to be free from Death,
free to live, while she could live.

In the cutting,
she felt a rush in her spirit,
a rush of life, of truth, of living water.
She drank it down full.
When I last saw her,
on that bus outside of Epcot,
she was a woman who loved herself and life.

My hair is thick and blonde from birth,
turning naturally brunette as I age.
I was raised believing
that over-forty women should keep their hair short,
else they look like they are trying to look young.
Though I believed as taught,
I never knew what that meant.

When I was younger, trying to look older,
I kept my hair shorter.
But as I move well past forty,
myself a mother now and
able to release the instruction of another age,
I’ve let my hair go where it may and grow.
I now recognize it as a gift from my creator.

It is thick and wavy
the envy of my friends.
I can go to sleep with it wet,
and it will obey me most mornings,
and when it has its own will,
it does not embarrass me.

Instead, it slowly, gently helps define me.
As it grows, something in me
lets go of old ideas – each half inch
another release – and embraces
new possibilities,
like the breaking of winter ice,
like redemption,
like Doris.

 
Written as response to: http://vesperinlimbo.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/medusa/

Rite of passage

When we crossed the creek,
you were nine, I was seven.
You jumped, I followed
in striped snowsuit, fell in, ran
dripping cold all the way home.

Grief

We don’t know how to
say goodbye, so we polish
our shoes, trim our nails,
put on our best bowties and
cry without shame, beyond words.

Into the deep

In high school
they envied my words,
pretty little clever things
I tossed around for amusement.
But what are words worth
when you can’t swim?
I wanted in:
Into the pool, the pond,
the lake, the stream,
into someone’s dream
of belonging.

Summer bodies
tanned and toned
dive off the dock
into the deep black
how did they do that,
arched like a knife
between sky and sea.
Never me.

September freshmen
pondering life by the pond
just me and Laura,
and she says, “How about
we swim across?”
A genuine question, not a dare.
Not a trace of ridicule there.
Amazing, she didn’t know
that I was not like that.
So I tried anyway.

Got foot cramp halfway,
nearly drowned with the snapping turtles,
but she dragged me to shore
and we laughed
like Olympians.