Never have I loved to
Try on one thing after another.
Never have I loved to
Compare which outfit is cheaper than the other.
Never have I loved to
sort through racks and racks of clothes.
Never have I loved to
repeatedly take off my shoes.
My socks stretch out
And my legs are scratched
From the tags that are
Stapled to these pants!
My hair's messed up
And I wore the wrong bra
For this dress I'd like to buy
But I can't!
Because then I'd need
To buy a new bra
And my budget
Won't fit the expense.
Maybe I'll stop
Wearing underwear at all!
Yeah, why wear any clothes?
That makes sense.
I'll wander around
in my white cotton socks
And never go
Shopping again!
Except to pick up
A package of socks
All I look for is
Size eight to ten!
Why can't everything be
one size fits all?
Like skirts!
When they're stretchy and loose
All you do is slip in
Quick and painless, no doubt
It will fit
And be put to good use,
Covering up all the parts
That offend certain people
When exposed to the
naked human eye.
Maybe then I'll like shopping
When the skirt always fits
And my shoes can stay on
all the time.
And my socks won't get stretched
And my hair won't get messed
I'll love shopping
When everything's my size!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
A Baby Kick
Please forgive me.
I did not mean to smile
at an inappropriate moment during your story.
I won't attempt to explain it
but how shall I contain it?
I fear you'd merely find my exclamations boring.
So I keep the thrill of my emotion
down to waves of inland oceans
and think on it later when I'll appreciate it fully.
See as I sat there lis'ning
to your confidential questioning
A thing occurred inside me I can only name as holy.
It was not your tone of voice
or your lovely word choice
that made me hold my breath in stunned, still silence.
(Although I find you most intriguing,
and your story filled completely
full of romantic interludes and violence.)
It was something beyond wonder
that made me stop and ponder
What meaning my life has or ever will.
My son, so small and carefree,
in that hidden spot inside me
Leapt and twisted, turned and kicked and had his fill
Of all the spaces I have not seen
that God has shaped inside me
Just for you, my little boy, my unborn child.
So for now it's just between us,
exploring places made to fit us;
When you adventure there, at inappropriate times I smile.
I did not mean to smile
at an inappropriate moment during your story.
I won't attempt to explain it
but how shall I contain it?
I fear you'd merely find my exclamations boring.
So I keep the thrill of my emotion
down to waves of inland oceans
and think on it later when I'll appreciate it fully.
See as I sat there lis'ning
to your confidential questioning
A thing occurred inside me I can only name as holy.
It was not your tone of voice
or your lovely word choice
that made me hold my breath in stunned, still silence.
(Although I find you most intriguing,
and your story filled completely
full of romantic interludes and violence.)
It was something beyond wonder
that made me stop and ponder
What meaning my life has or ever will.
My son, so small and carefree,
in that hidden spot inside me
Leapt and twisted, turned and kicked and had his fill
Of all the spaces I have not seen
that God has shaped inside me
Just for you, my little boy, my unborn child.
So for now it's just between us,
exploring places made to fit us;
When you adventure there, at inappropriate times I smile.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Elastic-Waist Pants
I could never have guessed that you would be
So comfortable, shapely and fitting for me.
Your grace of abundant elastic was daunting
But these sweet moments of snugness won't haunt me.
For you are beautiful and generously wide.
I promise I'll never again try to hide
You away in a closet where light never shows
Your wonderful girth. Which I personally know
For it's comfort and pleasing sensation. My hand
Will daily praise your elastic-waist band
With caresses passing over that shielded land
Where beneath your shelter
My baby sleeps.
So comfortable, shapely and fitting for me.
Your grace of abundant elastic was daunting
But these sweet moments of snugness won't haunt me.
For you are beautiful and generously wide.
I promise I'll never again try to hide
You away in a closet where light never shows
Your wonderful girth. Which I personally know
For it's comfort and pleasing sensation. My hand
Will daily praise your elastic-waist band
With caresses passing over that shielded land
Where beneath your shelter
My baby sleeps.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Tender Regrets
My lovely cheese,
You are spicy
You are sticky
You are yellow
Nacho Cheese
My lovely cheese
With each scoop
My taste buds sing.
Stomach cheers for
Nacho Cheese,
My lovely cheese.
When I taste you
I remember
Why I love you,
Nacho Cheese.
My lovely cheese
At the bottom
What is left of you
Is lonely
Nacho Cheese
and I
have no
more chips.
You are spicy
You are sticky
You are yellow
Nacho Cheese
My lovely cheese
With each scoop
My taste buds sing.
Stomach cheers for
Nacho Cheese,
My lovely cheese.
When I taste you
I remember
Why I love you,
Nacho Cheese.
My lovely cheese
At the bottom
What is left of you
Is lonely
Nacho Cheese
and I
have no
more chips.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Dreaming of Names
A few weeks ago I had a remarkable dream. I intend not only to remark upon it, but to relate it to you in its entirety. I believe that it was an unusual dream that meant more than I have yet discovered. I am waiting to see how the messages it holds fit into my life.
The dream:
Derek and I are sitting in the steel frame of a very tall office building with our feet hanging over the edge. We can see hills in the distance and green grass at the bottom of the building. There is a street not too far away, and people walking up and down sidewalks. The grass all turns brown and the sun begins to set, and a man walks up the stairs of the steel building and stops right near us. He is smiling and says, "isn't it a beautiful day?" And I say to him, "The world is broken". He shakes his head and says, "It's a beautiful day". I scream at him "This world is broken!" and he continues up the stairs into the higher parts of the building.
It is now night time and the street lights illuminate from the ground up. The outline of the steel building stretches out in front of us on the ground. Suddenly the man who has passed us on the stairs is falling from the top of the building. It appears he has jumped, and has fallen far from the building into the median of the busy street. I feel convicted for screaming at him and feel like I am the reason he has jumped from the top of the building.
I run out of the building and across the road. People are already gathered around his broken body taking pictures and video taping. I push them away and shout at them to stop. They won't go, and I shout until I realize that they don't know his name. I am certain this will make a difference to them and at last I shout, "This man's name is Eugene!" The flashbulbs cease and the murmuring crowd quiets down and disperses.
Eugene has fallen so hard that his body is pushed deep into the turf. He has fallen on the legs of a small child. As soon as the crowd of media begin to melt away a new group appears around me. The child with its legs pinned under Eugene's broken body tells me its name (I can't remember it, or the gender of the child). Soon children are crowding hard around us as I hold the pinned child's hand and each of the children are telling me their name. The sound of their voices telling me their names becomes very loud.
I notice then that Eugene is still breathing, though his body is broken and bloody.
Men in yellow suits come running down the street with huge spotlights on rollers and are clearing the street for emergency crews. Several ambulances come rushing down the street from the West and it seems like there is another emergency somewhere nearby and to the East. Fire trucks and police cars zoom past on both sides of the road, and emergency personnel flock past on foot because there weren't enough vehicles. The street is crowded with people rushing East.
One ambulance stops near me and the crowd of children all standing in the median. As I watch them lift Eugene's body out of the lawn, I notice the pinned child is gone. I turn in a full circle before I see the child walking down the street lamp splotched street, in the same direction that all the trucks were going, holding the hand of a firefighter. And I am sad I did not get to say good-bye.
The dream:
Derek and I are sitting in the steel frame of a very tall office building with our feet hanging over the edge. We can see hills in the distance and green grass at the bottom of the building. There is a street not too far away, and people walking up and down sidewalks. The grass all turns brown and the sun begins to set, and a man walks up the stairs of the steel building and stops right near us. He is smiling and says, "isn't it a beautiful day?" And I say to him, "The world is broken". He shakes his head and says, "It's a beautiful day". I scream at him "This world is broken!" and he continues up the stairs into the higher parts of the building.
It is now night time and the street lights illuminate from the ground up. The outline of the steel building stretches out in front of us on the ground. Suddenly the man who has passed us on the stairs is falling from the top of the building. It appears he has jumped, and has fallen far from the building into the median of the busy street. I feel convicted for screaming at him and feel like I am the reason he has jumped from the top of the building.
I run out of the building and across the road. People are already gathered around his broken body taking pictures and video taping. I push them away and shout at them to stop. They won't go, and I shout until I realize that they don't know his name. I am certain this will make a difference to them and at last I shout, "This man's name is Eugene!" The flashbulbs cease and the murmuring crowd quiets down and disperses.
Eugene has fallen so hard that his body is pushed deep into the turf. He has fallen on the legs of a small child. As soon as the crowd of media begin to melt away a new group appears around me. The child with its legs pinned under Eugene's broken body tells me its name (I can't remember it, or the gender of the child). Soon children are crowding hard around us as I hold the pinned child's hand and each of the children are telling me their name. The sound of their voices telling me their names becomes very loud.
I notice then that Eugene is still breathing, though his body is broken and bloody.
Men in yellow suits come running down the street with huge spotlights on rollers and are clearing the street for emergency crews. Several ambulances come rushing down the street from the West and it seems like there is another emergency somewhere nearby and to the East. Fire trucks and police cars zoom past on both sides of the road, and emergency personnel flock past on foot because there weren't enough vehicles. The street is crowded with people rushing East.
One ambulance stops near me and the crowd of children all standing in the median. As I watch them lift Eugene's body out of the lawn, I notice the pinned child is gone. I turn in a full circle before I see the child walking down the street lamp splotched street, in the same direction that all the trucks were going, holding the hand of a firefighter. And I am sad I did not get to say good-bye.
Friday, January 4, 2008
a poem I fell in love with
The Supple Deer
The quiet opening
between fence strands
perhaps eighteen inches.
Antlers to hind hooves,
four feet off the ground,
the deer poured through it.
No tuft of the coarse white belly hair left behind.
I don’t know how a stag turns
into a stream, an arc of water.
I have never felt such accurate envy.
Not of the deer—
To be that porous, to have such largeness pass through me.
- Jane Hirshfield
The quiet opening
between fence strands
perhaps eighteen inches.
Antlers to hind hooves,
four feet off the ground,
the deer poured through it.
No tuft of the coarse white belly hair left behind.
I don’t know how a stag turns
into a stream, an arc of water.
I have never felt such accurate envy.
Not of the deer—
To be that porous, to have such largeness pass through me.
- Jane Hirshfield
Windy Days
Today is a windy day, but I feel like everyday has been a windy day recently. I feel one way and then the wind blows me another. I decide on something and the wind changes direction and I have to make the decision all over again. I feel pushed along in front of a wind I have no control over.
I feel sad after a very large dose of hope begins to wear off.
I feel sad after a very large dose of hope begins to wear off.
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