It's just poetry, it won't bite

Instead of Writing Poems


02.26.14 Posted in today's words by

Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux is a storyteller, mime, and stilt walker. Her writing has appeared in Storytelling Magazine. She has lived at the edge of the Boundary Waters in the foothills of the Indian Himalaya, and off-grid in a yurt. She now resides with her family on the shore of Lake Superior, where they run an Art House B&B. Visit her blog.

Instead of Writing Poems
By Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux

I wanted to write poems about
..my infant son
..my life
………………..But–
there they both were
insistent cats
….who sat
……..upon the pages–
Miaow–
……let us out!
….Miaow–
……….take us in!

And so I lived instead.

I nursed my child,
….sat with him,
..held his wobbling head,
thought poems instead.

Instead of writing poems
I slept,
….dead out
….baby beside me,
drooling on the pillow &
when he slept longer
..than my body anticipated,
..pooling wet at my breast
……….on the bed.

Now he curls closer to my leg,
….grabs his ear,
..breathes heavily
……..into my pajamas–
I keep an eye on the page,
….another on him.
All things have become
….continuous line drawings–
never indulging
……in an evaluatory glance
….but looking ahead,
……….always keeping my eyes
….on the road,
……….the wheel,
…………..the small, growing babe.

When I look back at these pages someday
I will not recognize myself–
adrift without the old anchors,
but I will see
how I was so much more
…………..Alive,
..caught up like a gull
….in this wind
……of Change.

 



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