I'll never see it's like again;
The springtime coming to life
In my grandmothers back yard,
The birds singing, insects humming,
Sun dappled camouflage on the pond.
One mid-morning, mid-mourning,
Dreaming of love lost,
Hoping for hope.
It's funny, how young love is like childhood,
Gone before you truly value it,
Only cherished after the fact.
Only, cherish that fact,
Value it, before it's gone.
Humor your heart, like a child,
Hope for hope,
Dream of love!
And some mid-morning, quit mourning,
Let your camouflage fall, feel the sun,
Let the birdsong bring you back
To the wonder of childhood!
Love the autumn of life,
You'll never feel it's like again.

With overflowing hearts
a man and a woman
younger than I am now
watch their kids’ fascination grow
opening a paper square to show a busy sleigh.
For now, they can avoid the fact
that the thing that keeps
the young girl’s hands warm in the picture
is called a ****.

Is it another year so soon?
My little man, my dear big boy
as time goes on it begins to wound
yet still there remains a lasting joy.
Surprise hugs and silly kisses
shrink my world to you and I
and time’s wounding power decreases
as you teach me to deny
all I have and all I desire
to give it up, to self forget.
This is a truth that reaches higher,
to become content as vignette

As a woman, I have always
felt the pressure to procreate.
And if I succeed,
well, I better be the best mother I can be.
But what if, I’m scared
Of the pressures of social media.
That the moms that populate the page
will always be better than me.
That I may spread
my infected genes.
That maybe, right now, the world is
just a scary place to be.
But what if, I decide
to do things for me?
Does that deserve
to be guilty?

You ask me if I’m okay
And I want to yell at you,

To tell you how I sat up at night
And counted the lights in other buildings,
Just to know I wasn’t the only one alive.
To tell you that sometimes when I see you
I want to punch you in the face
Since we’re starting to look so similar.
To tell you how when my mind wants to hurt me
It uses your voice.
To tell you how you peeled off my skin
And made me dance through flames.

And of course I don’t.

Because I know you did your best.

"Metaphors are Dangerous"
is something my mother said
To me recently while hovering breathless above
her calendar; waiting carefully between the spaces of functions, appointments, and birthdays. Blank.

I asked her why she had me.
What became of my first calendar,
my genesis, the foretelling of my arrival?

What was "god's plan" for that lifeless heap of events she threw away in an afternoon, after everything within it either happened or didnt? Was it whisked away to trash island, with the other spent husks that had the audacity of limited use?

Does it still exist?
Stained and useless, wretched paper
sprawled out in the sun. Has it been completely reformed? Sent out as several paper cups, a newspaper,  a birthday cap, a kite?

What would god think of "used" calendars? Would he? When he reached our day of being in the cosmos, did he look at us and say "you will be used or you will be nothing" and pin us to the wall? A useful but temporary tool?

Why do we begin something at all? Why must we blow the balloon up just to let it go? Is it still a "balloon" when it's lying limp in a stranger's field a mile away?

In my mother's silence I knew she had no answer for me, except that "metaphors are dangerous" as her hands full of paper-cuts flattened the page.

I asked my dad to lend me one of his hats
I got Booked for a part in a popular tv show as a field worker
How about that?
It’s perfect. That’s where I come from
In the early morning hours he stopped by my home and left me one of his favorite sombreros and a small lemon cake
The memories lemon cake brings are bittersweet
Years ago, when I was a kid and I was too high, lemon cake was the only thing I could eat
Now it’s the life I grow inside of me’s favorite treat
Feelings that a lemon cake could bring
Are tangy but sweet
Like my adolescence
I take a bite and memories surrender
And they’re welcomed,
I’m grateful to be able to remember
Where I come from.

I know you don’t want to hear it
But one day you WILL
look up and think,
“****** Mom”
And then notice the rose-gold
Of a sunset

Just like I’m
Always taken by surprise
At how your eyes
Can change from green
to dusty gold then blue
Depending on the hue
Of your plain olive
or blue H & M T-shirt

I know you don’t want to hear it
But you will take that hike one day
With one or two or three
Progeny in tow and go
“Wow, inhale that smell”
Of wet outdoors and nature and life

Just like I inhale the boyness of you
Before you become a man
The spicy alcohol of cologne hiding
The musk of undone laundry maybe
The sweat, excretion of locker room,
Football, or track exertion

I know you don’t want to hear
About the birds and the bees,
Sticking your head out the truck window,
“Mom, please!”
But one day she’ll come for your heart

Just like you came for mine
that morning you were born

The first,
Finding myself,
Discovering the nurture,
Realising the impatience,
Encountering the unconditional love,

The second,
Oh, the second,
Sheer bliss,
For a while,
Then,confusion,

The third,
Mastered it!,
Yeah, right,
No instruction manual,
Complexity in full swing....


(C) eileenmcgreevy@ymail.com  13/01/2020