Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is "to draft a prose poem in the form/style of a postcard." Dear little Lucille,
By the time you are old enough to read this, it is my heart's longing that you and I are tea and sugar, pouring the aura of wonder and warm belonging into one another's lives. I long to see you giggle uncontrollably with my Ana, to see you dance for joy with my Eric. I long to see you all three rolling through the garden until you dog-pile with exhausted fullness. I long to read to you all on my knees and in my lap, and even more to let my cup overflow with your own stories. But we're an ocean away - I know how that ocean can become a wall, no less separating being water and not stone, a subtle conqueror ... the moment you catch a glimpse through the mist and spray, it swirls again in front of you. You'll have so many others in your life, you'll have no need of us...we with our words and day-to-days foreign to yours. You'll barely see our faces ...once every two years... who knows. All this rains down on me. You've barely stepped out of your cocoon and already it seems you've flown beyond our sight. Is the best I can hope you'll have heard of my name? No. I'll write again soon... I am so thankful for today's NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today, we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy – a poem typically written in honor or memory of someone dead. But we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy that has a hopefulness to it." It gives me the treasured opportunity to share the baby I always remember and the hope anchored in my heart through my baby's life. Following are the poem I wrote as I grieved being separated from my baby and the poem I write today... Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Our Baby We loved you from the first, hardly believing our blessing. From two, we now were three! What was to come we did no know. You were with me always, a miracle wrapped up close… But one of those moments you slipped away and we did not know. Your daddy spoke to you, gently, with excited joy. You were already gone, but we did not know. I played my harp for you, wondering when your ears could hear. You were already gone, but we did not know. We hoped and prayed for you, waiting to hear your heartbeat. My womb was already a tomb, but we did not know. Will we one day be with you? hear your heart and see your smile? My heart, not knowing, weeps. But I know God knows. Tuesday, April 24, 2018 Our Baby ...and only God knew how I would hear you in your sister's song and hold you in your rose blossom placed in her golden curls how I would feel you in your brother's kiss and smell you in his milk-sweet skin you are forever cradled Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: “when you hear it, you write it down.” Today, we challenge you to honor this idea with a poem based in sound. "I will rock you, my Ana, in dawn's early light
I will rock you, my Ana, deep into the night I will rock you, my baby, in my heart all my life..." I wrote this for you when you were still inside me ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I wrote this for you, Mama, when you were a tiny baby "This is your song This is your song..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You are the song my soul marvels at, the one I could never have thought of on my own. Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is "to write a poem that prominently features the idea of play. It could be a poem about a sport or game, a poem about people who play (or are playing a game), or even a poem in the form of the rules for a sport or game that you’ve just made up (sort of like Calvinball)." (http://www.napowrimo.net/) Playing Catch He catches my kiss on the palm of his hand
one on his gumdrop nose one on his neck, thrown back laughing one on his elf-point ear one in the curve of his toes He catches my eye all the time once in his awe at the snow once with a goodnight fish-kiss once laughing, in full-body wave once squinting at his own sunshine once marveling at his finger's point He's ten for ten in this game we both win the game I could play all my days. Today's NaPoWriMo prompt, from which I've picked-and-chosen to suit my purpose, is to write "a poem in which a villain ... is revealed to be human." Windex If I'd only had a little
maybe I would have seen You and not been so absorbed in my own skin's tone and hue If I'd only had a drop maybe I'd have seen You shine and not have lost myself to what should have been mine If I'd only had a little maybe I'd have realized all the beauty that I needed was in Your gleaming eyes Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to "write a haibun that takes in the natural landscape of the place you live." I have never written a haibun before and want to work on this one more in the future, but here's what I have so far. The rosy child picks the grass’s first sun-spoken exclamations: soft yellow affirmations, deep purple praises, thin-petaled white joy-cries. They are for her Grandmaman and for her mother. But another’s desire is set on these riches. And he comes armed, tiny but mighty weapon ever-ready, faithful to the will of his queen. Will the trusting joy of the child be a sacrifice to the loyal servant’s quest? And who’d be in the wrong? The child taking food from the mouths of a kingdom, or the warrior blind to an innocent’s pain?
Within a wing’s breadth they pass, from danger to dance each finding plenty. As I missed yesterday, I will combine yesterday's and today's prompts for my NaPoWriMo poem into one. Thus, in this poem the big meets the small...simultaneously. No bigger than the width of a hair A soul A life scientifically human Beyond scientifically measureless possibility to be you or I or the love of my life A person's a person no matter how small* Eternity dwells in the soul of us all.** * credit to Dr. Seuss ** credit to God Today's NaPoWritMo prompt is to write a poem in which mysterious and magical things occur. Here's mine:
Your curls blossom bubble roll down your neck, swaying to your own spin your own song They're untamed untied unkempt, I suppose but never would I cut them. *Note: You may ask what this has to do with magic. But to me it is magic that this beautiful child is so different from anyone else in our family. That from the way she looks to her already poetic thoughts, she is all her own. (Yesterday she not said but sang to me, "Mama is a rainbow in the sky..." This sung to a Mama who has hoped and prayed her depression wouldn't be a rain cloud over her children. What more of a blessing could one ask.) This poem shows just a part of the magic that is my daughter. I have been so excited about participating in National Poetry Writing Month with friends from the Pernessy Poets group... and though I'm late, I'm jumping in at last! I guess as I try to navigate the whirlwind adventure of motherhood, I'll just have to treasure the experiences I can and be patient with myself on the goals I can't grasp... right now. (The gift of each of my children is well worth it.) Today's http://www.napowrimo.net/ prompt was (as I took it) to list some identities that describe oneself (mother, wife, teacher, Swiss resident, etc.), think of them in terms of which showed power and which vulnerability, and then have one of the former talk to one of the latter. Here's mine:
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AuthorHi! My name is Martina, and I write picture books, riddles, limericks, additional poems, and puppet shows. I taught first grade, second grade, and kindergarten in the United States and now live in Switzerland where I enjoy good stories and poems with my husband and our three children. Archives
April 2020
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