In a few notations, I reviewed my reproductive life.
One miscarriage at the end of the first trimester.
I didn't have a name yet. Blighted ovum.
No one's fault. Tears.
The first live birth to term. Happiness and
weariness all at the same time. Fourteen hours of
labor. Emergency caesarian. A son.
One ectopic pregnancy. I remember bleeding
in the toilet, after an office meeting. I kept
saying, "No, no, no. Please stay, please, please."
Frightful, intense pain in my right abdomen.
Operation at dawn. Emptiness. Tears again
in the recovery room. My brother called on
my cellphone. No one else was there.
One more live birth. A girl, finally.
No protracted labor. I was wiser, this time,
rooming her in immediately, not caring
what the nurses said.
One scar, two children, two
deaths, two births. All of it fit in four
digits: 2, 0, 2, 2.
I credit a fellow poet, Jimmy, for helping me with this edit of the poem:
In a few notations, I reviewed my reproductive life.
One miscarriage at the end of the first trimester.
I didn't have a name yet. Blighted ovum.
No one's fault. Tears. The first live birth to term.
Happiness and weariness all at the same time.
Fourteen hours of labor. Emergency caesarian.
A son. One ectopic pregnancy. I remember
bleeding in the toilet, after an office meeting.
I kept saying, "No, no, no. Please stay, please, please."
Frightful, intense pain on my right abdomen.
Operation at dawn. Emptiness. Tears again
in the recovery room. My brother called on
my cellphone. No one else was there. One more
live birth. A girl, finally. No protracted labor.
I was wiser, this time, rooming her in immediately,
not caring what the nurses said. One scar,
two children, two deaths, two births.
All of it fit in four digits: 2, 0, 2, 2.
Also adding a note to this poem:
Note: This was written after our annual physical exam at the office. It felt very surreal to be processed from one station to the other. The doctor wrote cryptic numbers on my sheet. I took the time to figure it out, afterwards. The title refers to the GPA system but what was actually written on my sheet was TPAL (T = babies born to term, P = para or preterm births, A = abortus or miscarriage, L = live births). Gravida is the number of pregnancies.
My son asks me if we can visit a bakery
so we can see how bread is made.
"There are other kinds of bread, Mama, right?"
I assure him that there are. There are deliciously
heavy breads like brioche, baked with lots of
eggs and butter. There are grainy breads and
there are breads that are flat for a lack of yeast.
And I remember dismantling the word "bread."
I was on the way to an aunt's home, not much
older than my own son. I took apart the word,
saying it over and over again, marveling at how
it only stood for the thing that I ate, that left
crumbs on the plate. How could this be separate
and yet one with the thing of sustenance?
And who chose that it start with a "b" and end
with a "d?" And why does the "r" sound and feel
like the texture of the bread? At some point I felt
I did not understand the word.
And then time intervened.
So, today, for a few moments, I glimpsed
once again, how the words are the promises and
the things themselves, how the words are the story,
and the remembrance, and the life itself.
I would never have known this information in the past,
not without a pedometer. But just today, my steps
were measured, my cellphone keeping pace and time.
Those were the number of steps, there were calories
burned, distances covered in fractions of a kilometer.
It is a new frame for the pink hair clips that went into
the paper bag. It is the canvas of that stroll from building
to building, under a canopy of cloudy skies.
Three hundred and thirty two steps could mean
anything in a data-driven world where proof and
patterns and predictions are currencies on their own.
But I put it aside as I breathe in and out.
I have something for you when I come home.
The macapuno tart, the one left out of three pieces,
is side by side with my little gift. I imagine the sculpted pink
ribbon on your fine brown hair. There are more steps
left for the day, more goals, more items to tick off.
And then there is you. There is the changing scent
of your breath and the heady way I feel when
you shout with delight at my arrival. Distances
are shortened with your smile, with the mystery
of a brown paper bag that you will take
from my hands.
Below is an edited version (2013-07-25). I thank a fellow poet, Rose, for helping me with this. Much improved. :-)
Three Hundred Thirty Two Steps
Those were the number of steps, there were calories
burned, distances covered in fractions of a kilometer.
It is a new frame for the pink hair clips that went into
the paper bag. It is the canvas of that stroll from building
to building, under a canopy of cloudy skies.
Three hundred and thirty two steps could mean
anything in a data-driven world where proof and
patterns and predictions are currencies on their own.
But I put it aside as I breathe in and out.
I have something for you when I come home.
The macapuno tart, the one left out of three pieces,
is side by side with my little gift. I imagine the sculpted pink
ribbon on your fine brown hair. There are more steps
left for the day, more goals, more items to tick off.
There is the changing scent of your breath
and the heady way I feel
when you shout with delight
at my arrival.
Distances
are shortened with the mystery
of a brown paper bag that you will take
from my hands.
NaPoWriMo or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.
Death Anniversary
By Justine C. Tajonera
You loved the work of Marc Chagall. I have Paris Through The Window on my desktop. My favorite
paintings of yours are of a tree and the one with
you outside the gate of a house. Or perhaps, that
was me, locked out of your embrace after I realized
you had died. I remember the bright blueness
surrounding the house, the gate, the woman.
I used to listen to your vinyl mood music records
when I was in grade school. I imagined you listening
to them. I watch my daughter now. She's almost three,
my age when I lost you. I imagine you dressing me
in smocked dresses and fussing over my hair.
I remember how you put Betadine on my imaginary
wounds the way I now apply the antiseptic
on your granddaughter's imaginary scratches.
I could write poems for you, for every year after
I had to live without you. I could go on and on.
But there aren't enough words. I close my eyes. I go
into the closet again, the one where we put your large
framed photograph. I forgot the prayers I used to pray in
in that darkness. I just wanted to be close to you.
I come out to embrace my daughter and
all the years we will have.
I crawled into bed after having chased you
in the mall. My white shirt was the worst choice
for spaghetti and pizza. All I want is nothing
after a morning filled with you. Gratitude is
something that hasn't occurred to me yet.
Your shrill cries are still ringing in my ears.
I crawl out of bed looking for you,
Looking for reparation. There will be a day
when all I want is for you to shout at the
top of your lungs, "Mommy, Mommy!"
There will be a day when I will want those little
hands around my neck even with spaghetti sauce.
You move so quickly,
you won't stay still, not for pictures,
not even when I plead and offer you cookies.
I wash your hair and wrap you in a towel
and off you go, somewhere else, humming.
You used to scramble to pick up my jogging shoes
and put them on the shoe shelf but now you
only smile and say no and attempt to climb
up a shelf to get at your biscuits.
I want to capture your laugh, your smile,
all teeth and cheek.
I run to keep up with you and make
poor copies of you with my camera
(how will it ever come with the scent
of your nape?)
I want to keep discovering you, I want
to be surprised. I want this world to be yours,
little girl. I don't want you to be saved.
I want you to do the saving.
We hid eighty-four eggs in the park, yesterday
and waited an hour and a half for everyone to show up.
Eighty-three eggs were found in thirty minutes, one was unaccounted for.
Inside the eggs were pieces of paper with Easter quotes
about eternal life and temples and resurrection and God's
only begotten son. I had hoped some of the children would
read them before turning them over for the prizes of marshmallows
and star jelly candies and chocolates and lollipops.
Some of them did. But what I remember most was how hot
the afternoon light was. How cooling the breeze.
How peaceful it was with only the two of us looking for
unlikely places for children to find treats among the trees.
We rested on the wooden bench together, exhausted, smiling.
We counted all those eggs. We worked on them with our son,
our daughter. We had twelve big eggs with five small candies
in them. We had twelve small, fancy eggs with designs on them and
sixty regular eggs, each with three small candies in them. Sixty
out of the eight-four eggs had carefully folded pieces of paper.
Easter bunnies have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, I know,
but there was something in the work of that afternoon that was
the resurrection and the life.
They say you used to dance all afternoon in lieu of jogging. You used to eat pastillas de leche on your bed, dropping the white wrappers one by one, on the floor.
They say it's okay to cry. But I never really knew that because sometimes I doubt that I ever knew you at all.
I touch your bracelets, the red ink on your books. I touch your watch, the silver one, the one without numbers on its face.
I'm sure you must have covered my face with kisses. You must have.
There won't be a final conversation. You left. And that's that. And nothing will bring you back, not these sudden, red faced and disheveled moments of grief, even after thirty four years.
I kiss my children for you. I love you, you know, as if you were in my kitchen waiting to talk over hot lychee tea.
This for you to keep
when you are a grown woman
or maybe a mother yourself:
the smooth and plump
arch of your soles
when I kissed them
in your sleep,
your wispy baby hair
in my fingers
and the soft sound
of your breathing,
your brows not yet
drawn together
in your defiant little frown
as you lay dreaming.
At 5 a.m. she cries,
she demands,
she will not be denied.
I wake up, startled,
obeying an instinct, following
a predetermined course on a map
with my brain half-asleep.
Soothed, she cups my face
in her tiny hands.
She looks into my eyes.
The room is still dark
but her eyes are shining. Who is this who heard me? Who is this who completely understood me?
Years from now
someone will fall in love
with her
for those eyes.
I smile and take her hands
in mine before we both
fall back to sleep.
For Clea
Image is of Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo on the Cliff)
I just discovered this spoken word poem on Amazon.com. I stumbled upon it when I searched for poetry. It was the first book they recommended for the holidays. It is truly amazing. And because I do have a daughter, I found it really fascinating and true and poignant.
There are just some things I want to share with my daughter because I was there before her. And I want to share it with love, with a lot of understanding, with the compassion of a mother to a maybe-future-mother too. And not to say that I'm all-wise either. Like Sarah says in her poem, "on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive." I want her to know that I'll be there. Through her mistakes (which she'll surely make) and her triumphs and her heartaches (with all the drama!) and her joyful discoveries. And maybe when she's a mother herself... I'll be there before, during and after that painful, bewildering, crazy, beautiful thing called giving birth. And like "The Runaway Bunny" (one of my favorite kids' books) "B" reminds me that I am a "Point B" and no matter what my daughter will do... I will find her. And also that she can't get away from me.
Some things I want my daughter to have: a love for life, an independence of thought, a big, inexhaustible heart. And more, more, more.
I was very inspired by "B." And I'm already drafting something for Clea, especially after she woke me up at 5AM today! :-)
"B"
by Sarah Kay
If I should have a daughter,
instead of "mom," she's gonna call me "Point B."
Because that way she knows no matter what happens
at least she can always find her way to me.
And I'm going to paint the solar systems on the backs of her hands.
So that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say
"Oh, I know that like the back of my hand."
And she's gonna learn that this life
will hit you.
Hard.
In the face.
Wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach.
But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs
how much they like the taste of air.
There is hurt here
that cannot be fixed
by band-aids or poetry.
So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming,
I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape
all by herself.
Cause no matter how wide you stretch your fingers,
your hands will always be too small to catch
all the pain you want to heal.
Believe me.
I've tried.
"And, baby," I'll tell her,
"Don't keep your nose up in the air like that.
I know that trick;
I've done it a million times.
You're just smelling for smoke,
so you can follow the trail back to a burning house,
so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire,
to see if you can save him.
Or else,
find the boy who lit the fire in the first place
to see if you can change him."
But I know she will anyway,
so, instead, I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby.
Because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix.
Okay...there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix,
but that's what the rain boots are for.
Because rain will wash away everything,
if you let it.
I want her
to look at the world
through the underside of a glass bottom boat.
To look with a microscope at the galaxies that exist
on the pinpoint of a human mind.
Because...
that's the way my mom taught me.
That there'll be days like this.
There'll be days like this my mama said.
When you open your hands to catch
and wind up with only blisters and bruises.
When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly
and the very people you want to save
are the ones standing on your cape.
When your boots will fill with rain,
and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment,
and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say "Thank You."
Cause there's nothing more beautiful
than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline
no matter how many times it's sent away.
You will put the wind in winsome...lose some.
You will put the star in starting over. And over.
And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute
make sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
And, yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am
pretty damn naive.
But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar.
It can crumble so easily but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out
and taste it.
"Baby," I'll tell her,
"Remember your mama is a worrier
and your papa is a warrior.
And you are the girl with small hands and big eyes
who never stops asking for more."
"Remember that good things come in threes
and...so do bad things."
And, "Always apologize when you've done something wrong.
But don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes
refuse to stop shining.
Your voice is small
but don't ever stop singing."
And when they finally hand you heartache,
when they slip war and hatred under your door,
and offer you hand outs on street corners
of cynicism and defeat,
you tell them that they
really oughtta meet
your mother.
You won't remember this,
little one.
I was carrying you close
after the carousel ride
and there were fireworks
in the sky.
The lights and sound startled you
and your mouth opened in awe.
You looked at me, your eyes huge
with a question you couldn't yet ask,
then you looked away and
you looked at the sky again.
You leaned your head
on my shoulder
and those five minutes
stretched to forever
as I breathed in your wonder
and the powder on your neck,
your tiny hands holding on
to my shoulder.
I will keep this for us,
for when I hold your hand
through other days ahead,
for when you have children
of your own.
There was one morning
I discovered your socks in my bag
at work.
I started to cry, not yet knowing
if I was sad at the thought of you
waking up without me
or happy that I had something
of yours to hold me
together for the rest
of the day.
The other day, you were
already asleep
when I got back home
and I saw your slippers
outside your room
and again, I started to cry
not knowing if I was happy
that you were getting enough rest
or sad to have missed
tucking you
in bed with me.
These little things
string along in my mind
and break open my
heart.
I cannot yet
find the words
to describe why
each little thing
that you do
and leave
for me
to find
are lovely
little gifts
that throw open
all the windows
in my
life.
Before your sister was born
you loved to read four books:
one was about fuzzy yellow ducklings,
another one was about apples
up on a dog, a tiger and a lion,
another one was about a kitten
named Kate
and one was about a very busy
spider.
And this, this letter I am
writing you,
it will be a story too,
one I'll tell you when
you're older.
Life, you will discover
is a string of stories
that we tell each other,
holding us back
or taking us further.
And while I want to hold
back the steady stream
that makes us both older
only so I can watch you longer
I stitch my thoughts
into this story,
one of the many in
our tapestry,
so that it can fold
around us at bedtime,
wherever we are,
giving us good dreams
night after
night.
There is a sound that breaks
my heart every morning.
It is when I turn the lock
twice to leave
after getting a
goodbye kiss
from you.
Sometimes, you run
to the door
to see me out.
You wave
and say, "See you
later."
In what world is it
possible for me
to turn around
and
stay?
This morning
you finally held your
crayons in a pencil
grip,
correcting yourself,
watching me,
waiting for me to
smile.
What if we had
the whole day
to draw mountains
and trees
and suns?
Even though this is
the brink of
a work week,
I pick up my bag
and packed lunch
and head to the
door
no matter how hard
my heart remains
tied
to your side.
The day is coming,
just you wait
and see.
The day is coming
when we will both
go through that door
for adventures
with no measures
and a horizon of
mountains
and trees and
limitless suns.
(May 7, 2010)
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/psychobabble/274717482/
Things need to
get done.
The clock moves
forward, relentlessly,
bleeding from
one hour to
the next.
But everything stops
when I see his
happy face,
even the one
he puts up for
purely illustrative
purposes.
Moment melts
into moment,
stretching apart
like well-loved taffy
and anticipated mozzarella.
A separate world
consisting of
lollipops and pink
frosting and
blocks that turn
into robots
appears
out of nowhere,
reassuring me
that happiness
has no
reason.
I save each sleepy kiss
planted on my cheek,
each fistful of my hair that
my son gathers in
his hands.
There's a palpable warmth
that comes from being
with him.
I know that this will last
up to a certain age,
I know it in my head.
While it is comforting to know
that cycles repeat themselves
in life
I put my hands across time
like trying to tuck
a bed sheet
in a frame,
away from the
inevitable.
I never knew this
kind of relentless
counting of the
hours
until he tumbled
into our
hearts.
Each morning
I count
myself lucky
to have him snuggled
in my arms.
Nothing could be
simpler than his
body
warmth.
(Dec. 11, 2009)
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/amyvdh/2095120543/
.JPG)
