Two Days After My Dad Died

Tuesday November 16, 2010

Two Days After My Dad Died

The sun haloes
their heads
as they sit on the couch:
my mom's white
cloud of hair
and my daughter's
dark waves.

"How did you and Grampy
meet?" Erin asks.

A smile
like a flower opening
spreads over
my mom's face.

She starts talking.
We listen.
Erin reaches over
and holds her hand
while the sun rests
on their shoulders.

E is for Epithalamion

Epithalamion (ep a tha LAY me in): a song or poem in honor of a bride and groom.

I wrote this for my daughter's wedding two years ago. I folded it and thought I'd put it in my pocket so I could read it to them at the service. When the JP asked if anyone had anything to say, I put my hand in my pocket but the poem wasn't there. In the rush of getting ready, I'd accidentally put it in the book I was reading instead of my pocket. I was so mad at myself. I didn't find it until a month later. And I still haven't shown it to them. After I finish this post, I'm going to print it out and mail it to them. 'Bout time!

BTW, my daughter's name is Erin Elizabeth

You can see more E things at ABC Wednesday.
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Epithalamion: A Few Words for Erin and Shaun

It’s a cold icy day
at sugarloaf.

Erin, Gloria and I
are making our way
carefully down
a slope
that is not treating
us very well.

Seven-year-old Erin
gets frustrated,
plops down on the snow,
throws her ski poles
off her wrists,

plunks her chin
on her fist
and refuses
to go on.

Gloria and I try
not to laugh
as she whines
and cries.

Finally, she picks
herself up,
puts her ski poles
back on and continues
down the slope.

Today, she’s doing
the same thing
as she maneuvers
the ski slope
of life.

Sometimes the trail
is smooth and smiling

and sometimes it’s not.

But how lucky
she is to have
Shaun skiing by her side,
to help her when she falls,
to find
her ski poles
and put them back on,
to pick her up,
wipe the snow
from her clothes,
and, together,
make it
to the bottom.

Ceremonies for TOP

I sit in the audience
with other proud parents
listening to Governor
Jeanne Shaheen

talk about accomplishments,
but looking at my daughter
standing with the other
scholar athletes.

For this honor
they must play at least
two sports and maintain
an average of ninety or better.

I catch Erin’s eye
and we both smile
remembering…
remembering….

Erin loved first grade,
well, the mornings,
anyway:
songs, stories, snacks, recess.

After lunch, though,
she’d put her head down,
stick her thumb
in her mouth,

and take a nap.
At the end of the year
her teacher suggested
that she repeat first grade.

That summer she weaned
herself from her thumb
and asked to have her hair
cut into a sassy short style.

In September she entered
first grade, again,
her head held high,
the best reader in her class.

Today, her head is still
held high, her eyes shining.
I applaud the loudest
For her accomplishments.

Unexpected

For Writer's Island
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Colors

Blue and trucks,
racecars.
No pink, certainly.

Convinced you are a boy,
Dominic Derek.
Who can argue
with the needle test?
And a slow heartbeat?
And that thing
we saw
when you moved
during your ultrasound?

We knew you were a boy,
a new little snowboarder,
a fisherman.
There you were in your father’s arms,
love dripping from his eyes.

My little girl
now a mother
gathered in my arms
sharing the knowledge
of labor and pain
and birthing a son.

Big eyes,
a smile full of wonder,
words that float
in the air
but don’t penetrate.
“Mom, it’s a girl!”

A girl?
My ears are ready
for blue words;
they don’t comprehend
these pink birds
fluttering,
fluttering,
finally finding a home
in my heart.

Ruffles and dolls
Mother
Daughter.
Mother
Daughter.

Day 28 NaPoWriMo

A Forbidden Activity April 29, 2008
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She took a shower
then came downstairs
with just a towel
wrapped around her.

That how I saw
the hickey. It was
a strawberry
on the creamy meadow

just where the moon
of her breast began.
She saw me notice
and her eyes went wide.

“You let him brand you?
What are you, a cow?”
“I know, mom, I already
yelled at him.”

I knew they were having sex
but, a hickey?
That was going over
the line.

Clothes

For ReadWritePoem February 4, 2008
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Dressing

The color, of course,
is important.
For this day
she chooses
a soft pumpkin
to go with her jeans.

First she pushes her arms
up and into the angora.
It tickles a bit
but not too bad.

Then her head
enters the sunset
of her youth
and, for a second
or two, she can’t see.

She knows her head
will pop out
on the other side
of twelve

but, in that darkness,
in that in between
time, halfway
from light to light,

her heart somersaults,
just once, then her eyes
are through the collar.

She pulls all that sunrise
down over the curves
of her tomorrow.