It’s not supposed to be just notes
on a page.
It’s supposed to be a journey.

It’s supposed to lead from one
note to the next mixing harmony &
dissonance.

It’s supposed to be beauty
and sadness all tied up
in a golden thread of

the sacred.

Last April I felt so trapped that I sat in my mother’s rocking chair (the one she loaned me when you were born) and I wrote poems every day as if the words could somehow help me find a blank page to start over with.

This April is so different. How could I have known how different it was gonna be? You sat in your car seat yesterday for only the 2nd time in a month, with a mask over your face, and you named all the new things: new car, new house, new kitty, new school (the one you got to attend for only one month).

Tonight was the first time in a long time you said “I miss him,” followed by “I wonder if God knows when he’ll come back.” I gave the rocking chair back to my mom about a month before the pandemic. I just can’t seem to write poems this April. I wonder where the blank pages are.

So how’s it going really?

Has it hit you let you
run to the point where you
stop hunched over all out
of breath

And you suddenly feel
so empty that you don’t
even know what you
were running from?

Have the days run on
with you? Are they still
back there grabbing
at your heels like
memories you can’t shake?

Have you let yourself go
there?

To that place that
desperately burns its
way through the flimsy
melancholy
that you’ve been enduring?

Oh blankets

Soft warm oracles of sleep

You know how to wrap me in contentment

Your powers defeat all of my poetic desires

You gather me up and swathe me in unruffled slumber

Wherein I will weave wordless verses in my dreams

A tired poem to finish Day Sixteen of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Gate opened before
Your fiery approach
Were you hoping to crash through?

Front stoop adorned with
Gladiolus – her namesake
Did that transplant your perennial presumptions?

Windows shining like
Dark crescent eyes with wrinkled corners
Did they reflect back your insolence?

Door speaking softly
Swinging inward upon this vestibule
Did that cause you to be so unhinged?

Vibrant edges rounded by
Centuries of discrimination
I’m sorry, did she somehow steal your thunder?

Day Thirteen of Na/GloPoWriMo challenges us to write a poem about a non-apology for something stolen. This “sorry-not-sorry” poem is based on the accommodation that people of color make daily in the face of white privilege, and in particular it is inspired by a dear wise woman with whom I’ve had the honor to work.

Our rooms sometimes contain us well
But sometimes isn’t every day
The sunny windows, walls eggshell
Our rooms sometimes contain us well
On shelves our boxes neatly dwell
They hold what’s lacking tucked away
Our rooms sometimes contain us well
But sometimes isn’t every day

Day Twelve of Na/GloPoWriMo challenges us to write a triolet.

Remember
When we
Acted out storybooks

I
Was Gerald
You were Piggie

Snuggled
Most mornings
On the couch

Walked
The path
By the river

Sang
Happy Birthday
On a screen

Put
Training wheels
On your bike

Planted
Seeds for
An unknown future

Tied
Knots as
The world unraveled

Day Ten of Na/GloPoWriMo challenges us to write a hay(na)ku. “A hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words.” I’ve strung together memories that I want to save from this time spent together-apart.