smallest singing songs
while middle child gets left
by lazy teacher
add to “redo” lunch
(they again ran out of food)
our grammar school blues
but there’s still music
in the lives of my children
when we arrive home
they play clapping games
chase grins on their way to bed
sing sorrows away
i took back her phone
she cried for thirty minutes
then emerged from room
a week has now passed
i’ve seen her face more this week
than in the past year
she’s on page fifty
of a novel she started…
to write, not to read!
she plays piano
taught herself Star Wars theme songs
Darth Vader and all
she talks to us now
and plays games with her sisters
just like a child
she is my child
and i’ve ended the battle
that would lead to war
The fire alarm went off just after the minute bell, thirty seconds before finals were to start. I had already arrived early enough to stand in line and sign out my district final. I had taken the time to organize them name by name on every other desk, ready for the students to walk in, find their place, and write their best essay of this semester.
When the alarm blared into our ears, I told the kids what door to walk out. I grabbed my coat, ready to wrap some warmth around this December Monday. I locked my classroom door, thinking about the security of the tests.
And I entered the line. The students-ready-to-give-up line. The teachers-wondering-if-there’d-be-enough-time-now-for-finals line.
And in their arms, like infants ready to suckle? Tight against their chests like their lives depended upon the survival of a few stacks of lined booklets?
Their district finals.
“Where are your tests? Did you leave them in your room??”
Like I had committed a cardinal sin.
And this moment, more than any other, is why I think our society has completely fallen apart. No way our school, our city, our fire department would plan a fire drill the Monday morning moment before finals would begin.
So this could be REAL. We could be walking out of our school into a bitter cold standstill for hours as we wait for the beautiful firemen to rush five blocks in their blaring white truck to SAVE OUR LIVES.
And I left, God forbid, the tests in that damn room.
(Of course it was an error. Of course they were doing construction in the gym that set off the alarm. Of course they adjusted our schedule, making the day twenty minutes longer than planned, cutting into our lunch, our grading time, our collection of children from school, forcing us to stand in line again, forcing our children to stand like common prostitutes on the corner because their mother couldn’t arrive on time, all because of the security of that damn test.)
Of course I’ll give up my planning period tomorrow to catch up.
But I will not carry that test like it’s my baby. I have enough babies. Three of my own and thousands more. Their words are worth more than what the district (the society) asked them to write in sixty minutes. Their lives are worth more than the security of this test.
Our lives are worth more than the security of a TEST.
Someday, I hope, we will realize this.
even though i work
i’m blessed with housewife duties
on weeks off from school
our yearly bake fest
produced three minis, five pies
hard to beat this day
while rolling out crust
that we shaped so perfectly
they giggled, measured
but we all know best:
it’s not the crust that makes pies–
love’s in the filling
beef stew takes some time
to simmer while we have fun
discovering home
(it sits in sunlight
on a late November day
waiting to be found)
in stage selections
and modern airport hotels
where we say goodbye
it waits for new doors
open to ideas of
a sunlit autumn
in our house, our home
where thanksgiving starts and ends
all that matters: here
she turns eleven
drama sits on morn’s doorstep
yet she cries so well
you’re almost convinced
you’ve met an Oscar winner
(perhaps someday… yes)
until then? she’s apes
for her newest birthday gifts
Grandma, Grandpa win
competition? no
just a constant lost battle
to be what she wants
ice cream brownie end
the day that marks her entrance
into my world
couldn’t taste better
than the likes she shares with me
my middle, my love
building challenges
hermit crab obstacle course
get ready to win
pancake characters
make Sunday Funday better
Yoda one for me
but blue, best of all:
skies to steal mountain town, hike–
like soft spun taffy
and you won’t have this:
spinning autumnal joy swing
her trapped in between
and you’ll never know
what it’s like to live for them
(to live inside joy)
and you just can’t see
how losing this would mean all:
girls, home, husband… life
’cause it’s not a park
with green lawns, blue skies, red leaves:
it’s my livelihood
you’re a pic undone
where the sidewalk ends, my friend:
(leaves fall. i blossom.)
three-girl agreement
rare these days–two schools straddled
ice skating it is
My small poet is lost in the world of text citations, a phrase I never heard until I was a junior in high school… Not as a fourth grader. And while my fifth grader keeps the world laughing with her dry humor and is at or above par in every subject, I can only imagine how Rio feels when she hears from the fourth teacher in her life, “She is so shy.”
It is the label of introversion. The stamp on her personality. And as she sits there in the hard plastic chair, her whole body shrinks underneath the shawl Heather made all those years back. She presses her knees tight against her chest and her eyes redden in her quiet attempt to hold back tears.
How did they end up with the same teachers, and why did we have to bring the kids with us? These are things that go through my mind as I see the 1’s and 0’s on her paper. As the English teacher lowers her voice to just above a whisper, almost mocking the small voice of my youngest; as the math teacher blatantly tells her she needs to speak up in science since there aren’t tests and that’s the way she can prove what she knows.
“It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be,” he assures me when we arrive home.
Not two minutes later, Rio asks me to cuddle with her in bed. I read her part of her book, then close it and wait. She has that pouty I-want-to-tell-you-something look. “Is it the conferences? Is it someone at school? Is it something you don’t understand? Is it your daddy?” (Because dark thoughts enter when I am so, so scared for her.) She negates all questions, and finally, in a barely-audible whisper, tells me, “I’m scared to go to sleep. I have scary dreams.”
It took her twenty minutes to divulge this to me, so I don’t press her for more. I talk about the weekend, about carving pumpkins, about me taking her trick-or-treating all by herself, just with me, as her older sisters have outgrown going with Mama and Daddy and have friend plans. Her red eyes soften when I ask her to think about these things, to dream about them.
But I will never know what’s really going on inside her mind. She will never tell me. It could be the disgruntled drive over to conferences when I discussed with her daddy an allowance-and-all-other-activity cutoff after so much backtalk about chores this evening. It could be the teacher’s tiny voice mocking her small soul. It could be Isabella’s snide remark when she asked her if she wanted to listen to her read her poems aloud last night, and the teary rush into the other room when it looked like she’d offered a voice to someone who didn’t want to hear it. (Isabella made up for it later when Mythili asked for a full reading and Izzy complimented–and was quite impressed by–every last one of her poems). And it could be… that she’s just having scary dreams.
But I will never know. Just like her teachers will only know her as the “shy girl.” Her sisters will always think of her as the “easygoing one.” And her mother? Everything about her–her dark hazel eyes, her small smile, her desperate need to wrap her entire body around mine when she wakes in the morning–will always be an endless mystery to me. One with clues I will pick up as she grows–from those sweet lines of poetry to late-night whispers of fear–as I try to find the meaning behind the poetry that is my small, shy, loving angel.
