The Labyrinth or the Maze

I didn't care
for labyrinths
to walk a narrow
and certain path
I preffered the maze

A maze branches
a path with choices
and may ways
to arrive at
one destination

but labyrinths kept
finding me
in windswept sagebrush
walking the dog

and then there were
the hospital grounds
as I found my way
to the Plastics ward
for surgery that day

Every year
I go there still
so they can search
to see if it's come back

I walk past
the inlaid marble
pause to admire
the way it curves
and loops back
one path pressed
so close against
the next

I come back
one year after
the next
one day of every year
to remember
the fear, the pain
the slow path back

Maybe one year
I will be moved
to walk those curves
the smooth stones
to stand in the centre
of all that beauty

maybe then I can stand
so perfectly still
that I can feel
all the days
all the years
and still be -

 

March 21st 2015

 

********************

I never am happy with the ending of this one. I keep changing it. So this time, I just sort of left it off. There's a reference in here, that almost no one will get, to my alma mater's motto.

Late Night Poetry

here I sit
sleeping child in lap
attempting to scribble
something, any scrap 
of thought
still left here at the end
of another long day
attempting to be
litterary
or
failing (always failing) that
to rise above
the low bar set
of
high school poetry
I chase a thought
a fragment of
a sentance well crafted
half an hour ago
while I was too busy
cajoling toothbrushing
with a vaudeville act
involving hand puppets
or some such
silliness
Now, child finally (finally) sleeping
curled up and warm
breath soft and fragrant
as if remembering
in sleep
the many sleepy hours
of his baby days
now, here
a pen to one's self
safe from tiny snatching hands
who want to scribble
inscrutable letters
in this smallest crap
of space reserved for
my thoughts
here, at last
I sit and ask
I had a thought so...
It went just like...
oh!
How did it go?

February 27th 2015

*********************

This is the poem that started me writing again. Scribbled in my diary after a long day, child sleeping on my lap.

In The Quacking Place

Where's Gigi gone?
In the quacking place
He said
Mama you want to
open the quack
and look at the
kwock-o-dile!
Like a secret code
A secret language
only he knows
And yet I follow him
willingly
giddily
to the quacking place

Like Scheherazade
I feed him
tale after silly tale
While tooth brushing
hide-and-seeking
clothes changing
Cushion-bridge building
Dora Finds a Toothbrush
Green Hippo Goes to Swim Class
I dance and sing and
story-tell us through our day
then wake up and do it
all over again
Happily
giddily
A bridge built between
he and me
In the quacking place

21st October 2014

A place for just this

I just wanted a place for just my poems. So this is it. Starting with everything I've written since becoming a mother.