BIRTHDAY
We’ll sing her the birthday song
we’ve done it three times now
for that girl named after my mother,
with my mother’s profile.
Her blue eyes that stayed that way.
Feisty from the beginning—
sure of herself, surefooted, sure
of her wants. Monsters beware!
Disguised as one of them, she conquers.
From the tops of trees and towers she reigns.
VISITING THE GRANDCHILDREN
Books. Markers and tape.
Blocks go together or not.
From this height, piles of leaves
look too small for jumping
but they are fine.
The trail by the river is inviting
but too long for feet and too
embarrassing for the stroller.
Were we ever so busy?
We don’t remember.
The house is filled
with scampers, changes, babble.
Firefighter hats and a monster cape.
Harmonicas and a little tin drum.
What’s in the closet
and who knows the words?
What we want and don’t:
peanut butter, another story,
a good night’s sleep.
To be the first one found, or
the last one lost.
THE SWING
~after Marc Chagall
His mouth is open, mid-sentence.
The soles of his shoes are yellow,
his pants are green, his jacket
is blue. The figure behind the swing
is a brown blur. The swing
is in mid-arc, coming toward
the artist. In the ether
above the child, three cats
and a dog named Crazy
who is brown as Earth
are springing into being.
Crazy went away once
for a fortnight. When he got home,
he fell asleep at once. The animals
came with the swinging child
when he drove from California
to Vermont in one day. The cats
are named Thak, Willy, and Quilly.
They all died before you were born.
~Realized the next day that this is an imaginary Chagall painting. NOT Cassatt!
BAD COLD
Sick, and trying to remember
the grandchildren, who started this.
Sick, and thinking of refugees sick
in tents in terrible weather. Sick
and trying to be grateful for clean water,
warm blankets, my blue mug,
tea, fuel to heat the water. Grateful
for music on the radio all night,
the pressure of the dog’s sturdy body
beside me on the bed.
WE HAVE NO WORD
. . . for that feeling when the car pulls away
carrying the children home and the house
is quiet again as it always is now
except when they come
with their suitcases and boxes and diaper bags
and sippy cups and potty chair,
and we take the portable crib
and the high chair out of the attic
and the blocks and wooden train and smurfs
and drum and tambourine out of the trunk,
and the three-year old takes the big metal bowls
and the measuring cups and spoons
out of the cupboards and we
take the old picture books off the shelf
and make sure the camera batteries are charged.
And when they go, we put it all back
and get that feeling that has no name.
