paying attention

what I'm listening to: Freedom by Tim Fain



If you pay attention
you'll notice the quick, smart whip of them
the flash of color, the dart, the swoop through midair 
red and yellow and sometimes blue
like bits of confetti caught in a swirl 
fluttering, small and celebratory

But you'll miss them:
in the time between the house and car,
hot, white sidewalk
your keys jangling, small box of flashing images
or on a brisk, productive walk
through a sterile neighborhood, desaturated, stark
where each blade of grass is precisely
three-quarters of an inch in length

They are too quick for passing glances
too shy for small talk
radiant in their colors but 
much too humble to desire notice

The way to pay attention is to
be content in your stillness
to give consideration to the things that
no one would pay to see 

Like the round bee, tiny early riser
legs plump with buttery pollen,
and the way the shadows shift and the light pours
hour by hour, brilliant and honeyed
through the leaves and petals
in the garden

nursing

I am not a machine, nor just a vessel.
I am soft and warm and your head fits
in the crook of my arm
like it was designed that way.

But society's collective voice
is one of discomfort
as if the weight and length of you
defines what you need from me.
as if your ability to tell me your need -
the evidence of the development of your brain
with all its layers like an onion -
means my response should change

"you can tell me now in three or four words
that you need me
that you want me to hold you
in the cocoon of my arms
and nourish you from my body,
and so now, because of this,
I can no longer do that."




As if deep dimples on the
   back of your dumpling hand
         with skin as smooth
                as the petal of a flower

                  isn't enough.


As if the way your hair
       curls at the nape of your neck
               which smells sweet
                        of milk and sleep,

                         isn't enough.


And your cheeks that give softly
under the gentlest weight of my kiss
while you are sleeping,
the softest skin that knows
no world-weary travelers
no sun-baked afternoon of toil
just creamy pillows, pink hill
against the scallop shape of my body

as if all this isn't enough
to keep holding you at this meeting place
in my old bentwood rocker
situation by the bookshelf piled with
candlesticks and your great-grandpa's vintage records
in our favorite room in the house
where the sun spills yellow over the floorboards
and the breeze makes the curtains dance 
your toddling legs spilling over my arm
your eye meeting mine
the corners of your mouth turning up
in the sweetest grin of gratitude and safety.
It's enough for me, my darling.

And so here we are again at 4pm on a Tuesday afternoon,
a quiet moment during which
I am inaccessible to the world
and I am begging you not to fall asleep
but loving the weight of you, heavy and trusting
as I nourish you with only the energy of my body
with my whispered I love yous,
with so much more than what is visible
knowing there will be a last time
knowing you won't always ask for this.

folds

what I'm listening to - come into my arms by november ultra


when we moved into our house
which is likely 150 years old
but no one knows for sure,
I felt there were ghosts there
not spirits, not really
but folds in time 
time repeating itself
and I sensed the echo of it, the composite

time is a construct, isn't it?
just a word for an idea to help us understand
even though we can't begin to fathom the true length of it
so maybe it is not linear at all.

in the emptiness before we filled
the old house with our things
I walked around barefoot on the hardwood floors.
they creaked and groaned 
as I stepped where footsteps have gone before
the echoing rooms seemed so cavernous
but despite how hollow, they were not lifeless.

I imagined the pitter-patter of other children before my own
I wondered if babies had been born here
or in which rooms someone had breathed their last
or if anyone had ever felt very alone at night 
under candlelit shadows.
something about loneliness always tugs at me.

perhaps what I feel are memories no longer remembered
they float around like ghosts in these spaces
for where do they go when there is no one left to share the stories?
in a way perhaps I feel am doing them a service
by thinking of them as a way of remembering
just by acknowledging that the time that passed by before
was once the compelling and necessary present.