Category Archives: Poems

look up

I.

My world is so close.

So tiny. So right before my eyes.

It is all little grabbing hands

and chubby feet and

eyes, noses, mouths,

bellies, arms, and legs

that all need loving, and I forget

to see God in it.  I am forever looking down and in.

II.

In the vast expanse

of the horizon line,

in a surround of grass and forest,

in fields, on mountains, and shores,

I look up and out always

and am freed into a new perspective

and a new love of the old old God.

III.

I want to look up

when I look down.

I will see trees and sky

and vast expanse when I am nose to nose,

when I am lathering, rinsing, drying,

diapering, dressing, zipping.

When I am adjusting socks and fastening shoes,

I will look up.

When they come to me crying,

wailing, screaming, yelling,

I will be in awe of God’s power

to create such multi-faceted, complex beings,

and I will see their eternal souls

and I will see the God that they are a part of

when I look down, look over, look into

their sweet sweet eyes.

I will.

pride and screaming

I stand in the hallway

screaming from my roots –

one long screech from the four corners of my feet, from my pelvic floor, from the tips of my fingers.

 

My two-month-old sleeps

in her bouncey chair not five feet from where I stand.

My 23-month-old kicks and scream-cries behind her closed door on my right.

My 6-year-old plays in his room on my left.

And my husband leaves work

to drive to the city where he stands at his mother’s hospital bed.

 

There is nothing pretty here.

My breasts leak milk

and my post-partum belly hangs

deflated over my waistband.

I call my mom;

I pack diapers, wipes,

bottles, formula,

breast pump, nursing pads,

clothes, toys, a sippy cup,

and buckle the kids in their seats.

 

We drive two hours north east

and meet my parents at my sister’s house

where everyone takes care of my babies

and I sleep.

 

Screaming cracks the bricks of  my independent facade

and I ask for help.

 

Help is beautiful.