mountain riverbed
gold against blue aspen fire
drive dipped in heaven
waterfall delights
imaginative girls’ eyes
a doll’s paradise
toes dipped in ice falls
while leaves leave us dipped in gold
summer dipped in fall
renewal
Teach Like a Champion
ten months ago, dead:
my heart, when you told me that
(teaching is in me)
but you couldn’t teach
you could only criticize
i’m phoenix rising
with hate, you inspired
with love, i put students first
and guess what? we win
a perfect lesson
fits into care and action
not criticism
if only you’d see:
guide a better tomorrow
we’d want to stay here
but we’re not all strong
or feathers-renewable
with love, you could win
with love, we will win
my students and i? winners
please don’t burn feathers
tap your inner soul
for god’s sake, read the right book
allow us to fly
Life. Love. Loss.
before dawn message
asks permission for my love
i’m awake, ready
my soul sister breaks
before the sun emerges
i’d give her my life
sleep is a present
unpresent in this week’s life
seven days of hell
he flies tomorrow
what if he doesn’t make it
in time for her death?
my girls play the wii
squealing with best friend’s pained joy
parents’ illness wins
and yet they smile
dress up in formal attire
perfect for their game
living life scares me
as i list all my boyfriends
kindergarten up
ask him to recall
if he searched for love like me
or found it at home
he cannot answer
too consumed by coming grief
losing his mother
they will play all night
and go vacation their dreams
never knowing loss
that is what i want
no search for school boyfriends
just love at home. LOVE.
Cheers and Tears
longest week ever
ending with happy hour
tears still in ducts
The Other Side of Sorrow
before dawn alarm
lesson planning just can’t wait
always on my mind
six a.m. invite
curly-haired house of welcome
piano and grins
inside the lead walls?
plea for more books, print, copy
teach the world’s kids
order sympathy
on an unsigned card of hate
my heart sees flowers
psychologist’s help
ends with failing soccer star
begs for a grade change
policies can’t write
or change the screaming patient
that closes my day
teary, manly hugs
from those arms that ask for more
doctors don’t listen
at dark i drive home
day wholly spent on others
to hear more sad news
such is adult life
no more hide and seek for me
everything exposed
but how their eyes light
as they share their days’ stories
must. remember. JOY
Road, River, Range
It is probably best that you dissented. That Wii and dinner preparation were more important than this Sunday afternoon ride.
We all have our releases. Yours is cutting onions and spinning tires in an imaginary resort. Mine is spinning tires in the real world, on concrete paved just for my bicycle.
I was first out of the gate, ready to win. For one hour, I was not anybody’s mother. Anybody’s teacher. Anybody’s wife. Anybody’s (even the one who lost her baby) friend. I was just a cyclist, three words to my name: “On your left!!” shouted to the tops of the peaks. Ringing out over my music. Move out of my way because there are not enough miles, not enough breaths in my lungs, not enough songs on this playlist to pedal through this pain.
Only: Road, River, Range. That is all I wanted to see. That is all I wanted to pull into my soul this Sunday. Those blue Colorado skies, the perfectly paved path, the river that feeds us all, and the mountains that divide our continent. There is nothing in this world more beautiful than sweat trickling down a back, tight thigh muscles, clicking gears, and That View. I could live my whole life in that one hour, the numbness of nightmares disappearing with each and every mile.
Forget what she said on Friday. Or the horrible news that I might carry like a burden for three weeks and she will carry for a lifetime. Forget that I came home to discover my husband’s mother rests on her death bed and my little girls can’t quite wrap their minds around anything deeper than the five-house alley-walk to their friend’s house.
Forget it all for this one breath-stealing shout-out: Road, River, Range. Placed here for me, for all of us, to tackle with this perfect body someone gave me to live on this Earth.
The three R’s. Only a different lesson.
Crush
You know that when a grown man has to step into the restroom to wipe away his tears, it is that bad.
There is no measurement for this. There is no set standard of tears or years. It is only you and the devastation, the loss that will forever consume your life.
And I gather up my girls. My sixth-grader grabs my hand to walk past my First Denver Apartment (age eleven–how life spins in circles) and I take her fingers between mine like it’s my first crush. Because she is my first crush. My first crush of motherhood.
I think about the time after she was born and I had nightmare after nightmare of going places with her and leaving her somewhere… In the car seat on top of the car. In the stroller at the mall. In the back seat. At school. How my mind couldn’t fully adjust to being one hundred percent responsible for myself and a Whole Other Human.
And I hate that your life for the next four months means that you won’t be coming to work. That you have his room all set in perfect Pooh beauty, and that he will not be sleeping in that crib, and you will not be sleeping at all. And that you won’t have the joy of first-mother nightmares, of eleven-year-old arguments, of nine-year-old know-it-all truths, of eight-year-old cuddlings on the couch.
I hate that you would have to endure this before even fully becoming a mother.
Because you were a mother the moment he was inside of you, and your mindset changed from teacher + wife to wife + mother. And I hate how fate has changed all of that, and that you will wallow in loss and count birthdays and wish and wish and wish until there are no more wishes to wish.
And I hate how I cannot say anything to you, because I cannot possibly begin to understand the loss. The recovery. The absence of recovery. The first-mother crush that is crushed…
I hate that you won’t have first-child nightmares. Or that you will, only… they will be so much worse than anything I can imagine. I hate that you have this on your plate to face for the rest of your life. That you have Tragedy to bear for the rest of your life. Because you don’t deserve it. Because you wanted to be something so many people take for granted. Because you were meant to be a mother.
Because you were a mother. You ARE a mother. From the moment he was inside of you, you had that crush. That first-child crush.
Love is love. And it will find its way back into your life. Love lives beyond that life-changing moment. It grows inside of you just as easily as that beautiful baby boy. And it never ends. It never disappears, no matter how many birthdays pass, how many sad regrets.
Love is love. Love… is love.
Freedom from Entrapment
four parents arrive
yet you steal my night from home
but girls were all smiles
left to eat pudding
and choose a later bedtime
they thought they were free
back-to-school-night blues
twisted in a different tune
through a child’s eyes
Labor Day
baby stops mid-hill
after fifteen miles, done
she’s still my winner
i will wait for her
as we end this Labor Day
she is my last one
my beach day Denver
filled with beautiful sun girls
swimming and cycling
dreams are made this way
blue skies, wood-fired pizza, sun
and spinning tires
confluence meets park
bike path meets Vittetoe fam
we meet our happy
summer’s end flowers
and a zip line that beats Spain’s
best spent allowance
unions gave day off
for sleeping in and waffles
life’s a rented dream
i think in haikus
in between Monday cycles
that bring creeks and joy
Bought… and Paid For
with thousands of words
one hundred twenty letters
high schoolers shocked me
today? long boarding
last year? three mile water walk
in refugee camp
fathers left for dead
or years without their mothers
fear crossing borders
Somali warlords
Thai school beatings, civil war
their innocence lost
dreams to bring back peace
to a country they escaped
(and to pass my class)
whirlwind of worlds
sit in six columns, five rows
can i reach them all?
free education
earned with a blood-torn tear trail
worth every penny
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