May - Poem 10

Mother’s Day  / M. Anne Avera

i dislike touching my bare stomach touching the crater in the center
where i was once attached.

that was the only time i truly, molecularly touched someone
touched my mother through umbilical tie.

how it must have hurt her to rip me out how it must have
hurt

myself to be torn from her, never to cross atoms with anyone
ever again. i believe all things go back to 

her.
once,

i had a dream where i met a godhead with the face of my mother
the soft eyelids of my mother the weary hands of my mother

and she did not speak to me she only hummed.
she was electrified by moonlight current she was humming

the same five notes.
i saw her parts changing to knit together bone

from bone, flesh from flesh. she formed a newness of herself but it
was not quite 

herself.
and then i was filled as all children desire to be filled by comfort,

by thesus’ ship sailing ever forward, yet never quite
the same as it was before.

The Beauty of Life’s Elements / Desirae Chacon

As I sit back & ponder
Upon all of life’s great moments
a few elemental contributors come to mind

Light, Air, Water & Fire

Light

As i lift my eyes up to the hills 
I see coniferous sempervirentes
shaking hands with the Sun’s temperate 
Dawning palm 

Air 

feels like it has the ability to reset
responsive
sentient of
a configurative quality 
for making all things feel new

Water

the ideographic symbol for joy
a stream charts into its own purposed course
a sense of longing develops
knowing i will never see the same waters again
bittersweet
but taking comfort in knowing the same river is by my side

Fire

this comes to mind ultimately
because it feels like a primordial beginning
as gazing meets the primal glow
among flames
already present at the initiation of time
beginning with the end
& ending with a beginning

A Tiny Poem  / Heather Frankland

It is a tiny poem
one that can wrap
around your palm
twine between
your destiny lines
claim itself
the child
that one line
prophesized.
It is a tiny poem
a sponge that doubles
in size once wet
tears from joy or pain
will do.
It’ll grow
in your sleep
a green web
around your hand
pressing its mouth
to your finger
with the writer’s bump.
It has a heart now
and that heart glows
at every slow beat.
The tiny poem
becomes its own thing
with a trace
of you inside
--a seed—
and like a dandelion
when it’s ready
the wind will take
to soils just waiting
for a tiny poem
with a scroll inside
and a blossom
so bright
that it stains. 

Ode to a Birthday Candle / John Hanright

Flaming youth,
So soon does your wick burn,
But your soft light tells the truth
About life’s little joys and turns:
Illumine my laugh-lined face;
Warm the coldness in my heart;
Reveal each gray in my hair;
Remind me of each hint and trace
In the priceless years – from start
To end – and those wishes lost to the air.

Flaming youth,
So soon does your wick burn;
Trust I speak in sooth,
Each year’s wisdoms we earn –
This fragile flame, in whose care we’re charged,
Capable of surviving even the worst rains,
Just watch as it burns fast and slow,
Contracts and then is enlarged,
Makes pleasures into pains,
And brings to death’s abyss a boundless glow.

Flaming youth,
So soon does your wick burn –
For saying so, don’t think me uncouth;
My one wish is to return
Not to my past but to my memory,
Flickering like a fading flame.
I would say goodbye to youth’s bout,
But that would be
Like placing blame
On a candle waiting to be blown out.

Tenderness / Jillian Humphrey

After breakfast I return to bed,
one of the many comforts
of benign illness.
A head cold comes
with a permission slip.
I can put off work, laundry, writing
this poem. My brain slows,
feels almost childlike again —
floating and trusting.
My doctor listens carefully
to all that is happening
inside me.
She places her hand
on my back.
Deep breath.
Even the sound of Velcro,
the blood pressure cuff,
is like church bells to me.
Someone kind
will gently take my wrist,
ask nothing of me,
tell me good job
then send me home to sleep.

Pelham Bay, 1974  / Shane Moran

—from my grandfather

You gotta understand, 
my neighborhood was all white, 
and this black woman—

for some reason—knocked 
on our door to ask about her daughter, 
who was in the crash with Aria

Allegra and the drunk Ricci twins—
the lady wanted to know if she died 
on impact…or

Fire Starter  / Christina Vagenius

There is nothing frail about the woman
who uses the scalpel against her own heart,
revealing her own hurt, laying blankets down
for the wounded — a triage for the tired, restless
eyes of want rounded as she gathers, builds fires.
A fortress for what no longer waits for recruitment.
Just the stumble-drunk, lucky likeness
she calls love.

Can I turn you around? Hold your face
to the flame and say, you are the match,
we all need. The last ember doused
in your image, a polaroid pinched sideways,
leaking life onto what remains.

And your hands, pressed together
in a prayer more powerful than the mirror
you cracked a million times over. Seven years,
too long to recover, put back together with the ash
you smeared between seams, knowing what it takes
to ignite every lost dream. 

Mother’s Day Pantoum / Sonya Wohletz

Warm spring mornings replete with laughter and some robust chaos
Requests for more blueberry pancakes and melting butter
Sun reaching in through the kitchen window (it needs cleaning, of course)
As little legs zoom by— someone needing a band-aid for the second time today

And already requests for even more blueberry pancakes and melting butter
Time to get off Minecraft! So we can get ready and play outside
Look—the warm sun is beckoning through the window
Anticipation of the day’s newness, adventures (refill the diaper bag)

So it’s really time to get off Minecraft! For real this time! So we can head outside
There are fluffy dandelions in the garden waiting for us to wish upon
And adventure is blessing us away from routine (I’ll leave the laundry for later)
Two surprisingly strong children launch into my arms, sweet smell radiating from their heads

Like precious dandelions that I have wished upon and wished upon
While a warm and patient sun smiles through
My sweet children as they jump into my arms for another round of hugs
This warm spring morning—replete with robust laughter and just the right dose of chaos