I wrote this trio of prose poems for my son, Auden, about a year ago. They are made of equal parts reflection, grief, blessing, and delight. For one reason or another, though it is hard to pinpoint, today feels like a good day to share them.
Look up! Look everywhere. See galaxies.
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i. A Dedication
This is for you, my son, my sweet, clever, curious, attentive boy whose generosity with all these things runs deep.
Though I am your mother, I try hard not to be pedantic, to stay vulnerable and open where I’d rather be a know-it-all, where I’d rather be at least a know-more, to claim I have a wise soul I’ve not yet earned. I am a learner beside you, and this is for the better.
You have me convinced you often know more than I do about what it means to be happy, to love the world. There is nothing between you and delight, nor you and disappointment, pride, grouchiness. No chasm runs between your face and deep feeling. You share it all with us. Thank you.
I write poems because they root me in the world. They are a sort of gravity, create a oneness between myself and a life, make the world absorb me. I write poems because they remind me deep in my body what it might be like to be you on a day like today, one year old and ready to greet whatever your hand can hold this moment.
ii. An Heirloom
I bought myself a paper journal. I’ve never used it, but I liked the idea of it one day when I was bored.
I am moving away from the noise of technology, and I must find something meaningful to fill the void, I said to myself as I sat antsy in a coffee shop with nothing to do but watch you sleep. You are utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful when you sleep. My yearning for stillness grates against my American soul.
I hope you will remember me like this someday, when the time comes to remember me: as a woman of complexity, of competing desires; a home of a person, sloped floors and splintered joists and warm meals, sweet stories. I never want to miss or forget a second of you. This is decisively true. It is also true that often what I give you of me is my distraction, my fidgeting, my interruption.
The poems I write, created out of occasions of pure and connected attention, are not the sum of the woman who wrote them. Of course, you already know this. A poem will always be a poor summary of a person. But it is a wonderful portrait of a person in a moment, so this is a gallery. Here, your mother in the woods, in the kitchen, in love, afraid; here, in grief, or at the window, or smiling as you play. Here, your mother, watchful and noticing, vital.
Here, your mother, wishing to give all these dearest pictures to you.
iii. A Blessing
If I could, though.
If I could presume to teach you something, your eyes already wide with learning, your face alight with the sensibility of awe—if I could make a wish for you, if I could say for you a blessing, just in case this is not already in your bones to do: let curiosity be the sun you orbit.
May you dance around it, twirl and spin in its reliable gravity, bask in its abundant warmth, recognize the bleak winter of its absence. May why, may wonder, bring you back to a beginning year after year. Look up! Look up! Look everywhere. See galaxies.
Curiosity is a midwife and a matriarch. She is the mother of empathy, of attention. She is the giver of imagination and delight. When she makes a meal, as any meal, it is nourishment for that moment alone. But there will never be a day she hasn’t prepared something for you. It sits on her table, heaping and ready. You must come to her daily and eat.
Love the Blessing - appreciate these words today! <3
"An Heirloom" speaks so deeply to my soul. Is it alright to share your words, with credit?