I made a wish and blew a kiss and sent it to the stars. I wished upon some candle flames and on all the pennies in my jar. I dreamed a dream upon a flower and sent the petals floating in the wind. I wrote a hope inside a note and sent the bottle for a swim. I took a fallen eyelash and sent it flying in the breeze. I spoke my hopes to all the leaves dancing on the trees. And all those wishes and all those dreams, though they took a while, come true for me, every time you smile.
Migraine
You sit upon my shoulders and try to weigh me down with muscles that tighten and make it hard to move around. You sneak into my jaw, my cheeks, my lips, my teeth sitting quietly while you stew just underneath. Then moving... You grip and squeeze my head setting fire to my mind shooting sparks inside my eyes igniting pain, leaving nothing far behind. I should have learned by now just how to conquer you, I should be on to all your tricks this isn’t something new. Maybe I’m too rushed or there’s more I need to learn about patience, calm, balance... as once again you burn setting stones upon my shoulders throbbing ache inside my jaw stabbing at my eyes and I wait for the medicine to work and the pain to finally thaw, release me, give me another turn to see if, maybe this time, my lesson I have learned.
One by one
One can be dangerous. One can be the difference between pleasure and pain, as willpower lost is hard to regain. As balance teeters and control peters out, one can sow seeds of fear and of doubt... or One can be hope filled, one can be the difference to getting closer to a dream, a tiny step forward not always felt or seen. One can change the pattern, disrupt the rhythm, break the mold; one can change the old to new and make way for fresh stories to be told. One is a possibility, a pathway, a chance. One is an opportunity, a decision, a stance. One is limiting and freeing. Take care in every 'one' encountered as they shape destinies.
Motherhood: Sleepless Nights
One day I wont remember why, at 1 a.m., you woke me just to say hello again. To look into my eyes, to snuggle, to hold my shaky hand... I won’t remember just how small you were as you conducted all my moves with grunts and squirms and fussy cries full of attitude. I won’t remember arching my aching back or how heavy my eyelids were as the numbers on the clock flicked past and melted into a reddened blur. I won’t remember how you curled up closer and closer to me growing warmer, softer, heavier as once again you grew sleepy. I won’t remember all the details of these long and sleepless nights my memory will dim as if shutting off the lights... I know that this time is fleeting, that you’ll grow and need me no more, that there will come a day when I’d wish and I’d pray for a moment of these times from before. And I’ll remember the sleepiness, the unending effort, the uncertainties and doubt, the demand... And I’ll remember loving you, snuggling you, and holding your tiny and already growing hand.
Dark Circles
Rest
like silken spider threads
I can see
but when I reach for it…
it breaks.
It takes
so much
to keep the light
of endless searching
for the right
path on.
But so I must,
and so I do,
carry on.
Life Is…
Life is
breaths in and out,
here and gone.
Life is
sunrises and sunsets
each unlike the other.
Life is
cycles of seasons
always changing.
Life is
as impermanent as
footsteps by the ocean’s edge.
Hard to Relax
Just trying to get back in the swing of writing. (It’s been another loooong break period.) I’m rusty, I know, but maybe with practice the muses will return.
I’m having a lot of trouble, and always have, with relaxing. I always feel guilty afterwards, like there are things I could have, should have done. I’m still working on finding my balance with this.
It is a never ending battle
for me,
the two sides of myself
always at war
always wanting more.
‘Hard work, goals, ambition
That should be every day tradition.
Plan and prep and ready be
for anything we cannot see.
Nose to the grindstone,
there are things to be done.
Resting is defeat,
the way our work is soon undone.’
‘Nay, life is lived but once.
Rest.
Enjoy, relax, breathe peace
take in the world at it’s best.
Put aside your list now please
take the time to look around,
the world, the smells, the sights, the sounds
loveliness here abounds.’
The two war back and forth.
Day in day out.
Guilting me in a tug of war bout,
til one side wins, temporarily,
and then the other whispers in my ear
and once again
I feel guilty.
Mommy Brain
I had heard of ‘mommy brain’ but I didn’t believe
my brain could be changed
from a lockbox to a sieve.
I had no idea that things that used to be a breeze
would sit. stuck. in. my. mind.
in a frustrating freeze.
Rhymes and ideas are now more of a struggle,
it takes time to piece them together like some kind of puzzle.
Maybe it’s simply the lack of sleep,
from all of the wonky mommy hours I now keep.
Maybe it’s the way my brain’s wired to your call,
your every breath and every need,
I wait for it all.
Or maybe it’s the way your smile makes my world spin,
how every giggle feels like a win.
Maybe my brain is just tied up in you,
preoccupied with all that you are and all that you do-
and maybe in time my two brains, the old and the new, will fuse
and I’ll have a super brain I can use.
Either way, my baby, I’m overjoyed you are here
And I’ll treasure this mommy brain year after year.
Written January 8, 2019
This Past Decade
Reflecting on a decade,
reflecting on a year
listening to echos of laughs
the ghosts of sighs and tears…
Remembering the good times
the sad and all the rest,
looking down a long road tread
and all the paths we thought were best.
We are who we are today
because of what has been.
We are shaped by what we learned
and now we can begin
to start all over
and start right where we are.
As the clocks roll forward yet again,
the old year written in the stars.
Gifted
The present- it so quickly moves along-
hardly grasped
before it’s gone.
The challenge to live in the now
even more of a race
than the rushed and hectic pace
of our lives.
