Poems II
the next wave of poems from A Poem A Day in May with Kaitlin Curtice
I’m learning a lot about poetry and meeting some incredible poets through Kaitlin Curtice’s Poem a Day in May. Check out her Substack, The Liminality Journal, for all of her writings and upcoming events and offerings.
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Tender
Several shoots spring up from a crack in a busy sidewalk in the New Orleans French Quarter.
“Keep growing, tender ones,” I whisper as I walk by.
The work of tender resistance is evergreen.
Smoke
Green magnolia leaves make a glorious popping sound when thrown onto a fire and send a vibrant white smoke straight up into the air.
The smell of magnolia flowers and summer rain on melting, bubbling tar seeping through the cracks in the asphalt on Grandaddy’s country road mixes with the aroma of wild spring onions, freshly mowed grass, and burning marshmallows.
The magnolia smoke swirling with the laugher of cousins gathered together to roast marshmallows and revel in their sticky goodness wafts its way up into the night sky, like a prayer.
Do No Harm
Do no harm was the soundtrack of my early life.
Do no harm in keeping me, but at what risk to my birth mother?
Margaret the Social Worker helped her pick a family for me.
A birth mother sits in a Texas adoption agency choosing a family for me.
I am born.
She is gone.
The family she picked for me is wonderful.
I think a lot about the harms done to her in the name of “do no harm” to the baby.
Sage
My cat sagely teaches me from her napping spot that so many daily cares can be made better by sleeping.
Body
I grew up hating your curves and softness.
I learned to wish you were different, I learned to despise, and starve, and loathe you, until I decided to stop.
I don’t tell you I love you enough, but I do.
I love your softness because it makes me tender.
I love your curves because they are my Mexican-ness, embodied.
I love these thighs because I can dance with them, these eyes because I can read with them, these hands because I can write with them.
I love you because you carry me through this world
a unique vessel, the only one of this particular design.
Body of mine, you are exquisite. You are resilient. You are loved.
Dance
I’m learning the dances of my life through learning to teach Zumba.
Salsa for the Mexican blood that runs in my veins.
Samba for reclaiming a piece of the culture of Brazil where I grew up that was kept from me.
I’m learning the dances of my life because I had too much of “God doesn’t want you to move your body that way” and not enough of “your body is good, and made to move.”
I’m learning the dances of my life because my whole life has been a dance all along, and I’ve finally awakened to the joy.
Bandage
I’m not ready to pull off my most recent bandage.
Twenty-four hours of donated PTO for addressing a family crisis right before vacation sit in my bank, like a hug
holding my heart together.
I think I’ll leave it wrapped a little longer.
Story
“Tell me a story about when I was little” my nieces love to ask.
I tell them about the cute ways they used to say things.
“Tell me a story about when I was little” they ask again.
I tell them about how much I loved them, instantly, from the moment we first met.
“Tell me a story about when I was little” they ask again.
And I tell them that every story I remember from their lives would fill days and days,
because I carry them all in my heart,
so we all agree to be grateful, in this moment, that we are a part of each other’s stories.
S I L E N C E
I’m inclined to avoid silence.
Silence lets my thoughts wander into and wonder out of discomfort and pain
wandering a wilderness of whats:
what if, what might, what could.
I’ve found that avoiding makes it worse
and that it is far better to lean into the silence.
In the silence, the wandering and wondering
turn into possibility - a more generous “what if.”
In the silence as it festers, convicts,
then transforms and transcends,
wanderings and wonderings settle into peace.
Sacred
The sacred in my life is nestled in vast, unknowable mystery.
I’m increasingly convinced that the sacred is most fully expressed
in deep uncertainty and vast mystery.
Are you seeking the sacred? Searching for the divine?
Let the mystery grow and blossom.
Let the uncertainty sting until it resonates.
Let the unknown and the unknowing be a balm.