ON POETRY: WITH FIREBLOSSOM AND MAMA ZEN

We have a special feature today, friends. Fireblossom (aka Shay Simmons) and Mama Zen (aka Kelli Simpson) are weighing in on poetry and blogging. Pour yourself something tall and cool (or stubby and hot) and draw your chairs in close. These poets know how to Use Their Words, and we don't want to miss a single one.

Proof For The Postulation Of An Old Poet

The generosity of madmen
--whether born or made so--
is like a pitcher overturned, 
sweetness wasted in the sharing.

I'm not about to mistake straitjackets for haute couture;
I am as hard and closed as a policeman's nightstick.

Still, you can lay naked in the spring grass,
holding a hymnal and a caramel.
Pretend yourself a parrot, all colors.
I will still be the crow from whom the night borrows its darkness.

When you have gone, I will play ancient games
with dying cicadas.
The years will fold themselves into pastries
the crumbs of which I horde and never drop.

Go, parrot. And this time
do not leave open my coat of poems
with sleeves like shaded roads, and wool like forgotten noons.
But if you do, I will have been right in my manic certainty

that you would make me cry in the end.



Sherry: Oh my goodness! The "coat of poems"! "Wool like forgotten noons!" I don't know how you do it. I am just so very glad you do, and that we get to read you. Tell us, Poet, your thoughts on poetry.

Shay: Poetry to me means being fearlessly honest, including and especially about difficult subjects. It means passion and energy and brevity. By that last I mean saying what you have to say in a succinct and powerful way, not losing or diffusing your point with meandering fluff. (I re-read my first solo book and think, oy, where was an editor when I needed one?) 

I get ideas from almost anything. It's like....I'll be watching a movie and something will send my imagination into a big long tangential invention of my own and by the time I blink and come back, I have to rewind because I daydreamed through the last 15 minutes of the movie. A word, an image, a song, anything can send me off to the races. 

When I know I've gotten it just right--which isn't that often--it's a fantastic feeling. This will sound horribly immodest, but when that happens, I think, "Damn, I'm good!" It's a great feeling. And that confidence, that ego, are what make me feel like I can say something difficult well the next time. Fear paralyzes writers. I have become fearless in my old age. (I also realize that there are a thousand things I am NOT good at. But I am good at this one thing.) 

Sherry: To your followers, it seems like you get it just right every time, and we are astonished by that fact. And so impressed!

What is your take on blogging? Has the online poetry world impacted your work?

Shay: Blogging has been wonderful for my love of poetry and for writing my own. Poets like Hedgewitch and Mama Zen push me and always have. I read something fantastic that they have written and I am 1) thrilled for them and 2) eager to try to match it. I'm not competitive with the writers I admire most. I love their successes as much as my own. I'm just saying they spur me to greater efforts. Also, blogging has made me friends who I never would have met otherwise. I don't think poetry blogging has the same energy as it once did, though. I am not as into it as I used to be, but I do keep my hand in. 

Sherry: I don't think blogging has the energy it once did either - but we are ten years more tired too........I loved those heady days! I will always look back on those years with gratitude, when the world of online poetry opened its doors to me.

I like what you say about not feeling competitive with the poets whose work you admire most. I feel the same way (about your work, for example.) It would be like trying to compete with a star, rather than enjoying its beauty and perfection in the sky. I just glory in their (and your) talent. 

Thank you for this chat, Shay. Online poetry, as you say, introduced me to friends all over the world I never would have met otherwise. My life has been so much richer for it.

Let's see what Mama Zen has to say, shall we?

Snoopy - who cracks me up!

The Buck

The buck, throat cut,

bleeds out about six.

Half-hidden in nightfall,

I redden a stick

and dampen the doorway -

a Sunday school lesson

pass over

pass over

pass over.

Sherry: Yes, may bad things pass over our homes and our lives, though it feels like the whole planet is in peril these days.

Would you share your thoughts about poetry with us? Your poem definitely shows the power words have to impact our minds and hearts.

Kelli: Have you ever heard of the Supreme Court obscenity test? In a ruling in the '60s, Judge Potter Stewart wasn't able to define obscenity, but claimed to know it when he saw it.  That's kind of how I feel about poetry.  I can't really tell you what it is, or what makes it what it is, but I know it when I see it and, more importantly, when I feel it.

Sherry: And the reader, too, knows it when she sees (and feels) it. As in your poem, shared here. Great explanation, Kelli.

  

Kelli: Without the online poetry world, I'm not sure that I would be writing poetry now.  I had written poems and songs in my teens and twenties, but I had given it up to pursue other things.  It was the wonderful poets that I met online who inspired and encouraged me to pick up the pen again.

At the moment, I'm taking a break from blogging.  I'm homeschooling and doing some political activism, so I don't really have the time to interact the way I would want to if I were posting.  I'm still writing, though, so I hope to be able to return soon.  And, I miss you guys!

Sherry: Homeschooling and political activism are important, Kelli. We are glad you are still writing, and it is wonderful to know we can look forward to your return. Thank you for saying yes to this short visit. We are so happy to hear from you! We miss you!

Kelli: Thank you, Sherry.  And thank you, everyone, for all of your kindnesses over the years.

We hope you enjoyed this exchange, friends. Next week, Marian Kent and Susie Clevenger will similarly share their thoughts on poetry and blogging. Be sure not to miss it!

BLOG OF THE WEEK: AN UPDATE WITH MAMA ZEN

This week, my friends, we are catching up with Kelli, the incomparable Mama Zen, who writes at another damn poetry blog, (though it is anything but!) We are looking forward to hearing what she's been up to, reading some of her fine poems, and enjoying some photos that will give us a sense of her location on the planet. Pull your chairs in close. This is going to be wonderful!

Sherry: Kelli, our last update was in 2016. Bring us up to date, won’t you? How is your Grandma doing? How is Baby Puppy? Is she writing herself, these days? (I am still waiting to interview her one day. Smiles.) And how are you, as you mark three years since the death of your mother at the too-young age of 62?

Kelli: So good to be with you again, Sherry.

The family is doing well.  At 85, my Grannie is still able to run circles around most people half her age (including me!).  We're trying to get her to slow down a bit, maybe hire out some of the yard work and such, but I don't know if she is going to have it.

My Grannie and I at an Oklahoma City Thunder game.

She's as Thunder crazy as I am, so this is our thing.

Baby Puppy is the most naturally gifted writer I have ever seen.  Pure raw talent.  It truly awes me. 

Sherry: I am not at all surprised, given her talented mother!

Kelli: We home school, now, so we have access to more rigorous classes and more areas of study than were available in traditional school.  But, it's hard work.  For both of us.

Sherry: A wonderful option for a creative person. And safer, too.

Kelli: As for me, it's been difficult.  Frankly, I just went numb for a while.  But, I'm at peace with my mother's passing. That fact alone is at least some evidence of God.

Sherry: I'm glad to hear that, Kelli. Sometimes when we go through hard times, our writing slows for a while. Louise Erdrich calls this a “time of gestation.” How is your writing going?

Kelli: "Time of gestation." I like that, and I certainly hope that it's true.  It sounds much prettier than "banging my head bloody against the wall." I seem to be going through a slow period when it comes to my writing.  It's painful, but maybe it's necessary.  Refilling the well and all that.

Sherry: Well, the poems we are reading are consistently amazing, in my humble opinion. What do you love about poetry? How do you feel those times when a poem turns out exactly the way you want?

Kelli: I don't think that I've ever had a moment when a poem has turned out exactly the way I wanted.  I'm not sure I would recognize a moment like that if it happened.  I have had some moments when I finished a poem and felt a little less ordinary than I am.  Poetry has that kind of magic.  That's what I love about it.

Sherry: Wow. That astonishes me. So many of your poems take my breath away. And you are anything but ordinary! Do you have a favourite poet?

Mama Zen at (cos)play dressed as Roxy Lalonde,

but that's not important. The important thing is the Trans Am

I'm leaning against. Recognize it? That's the Smokey and the Bandit car!

Kelli: Yes, but I'm not monogamous.  I like playing the field.  Right now, I'm dating Nikki Giovanni.  Recently, I had flings with John Berryman and Walt Whitman.  But I always come back to Shakespeare.

Sherry: When you look back, are there any clues in childhood that you would become a poet? 

Kelli: I don't know if you would call it a clue, but books were a huge part of my childhood.  I read everything that I could get my hands on.  And I had a very vivid imagination.

Sherry: Ah, the foundation of most poets, I suspect. When did you start writing?

Kelli: I started writing in earnest when I was about 14.  I was a living stereotype!  Dressed in black from head to toe, blue black hair dye and nail polish, motorcycle boots, and a tattered notebook of poems detailing my teenage angst.  But I didn't think of myself as a poet.  I was a songwriter.

Sherry: I can see you! Smiles. Is there one person you feel had a significant influence on you in your life, and/or as a creative person?

Kelli: I can think of a few people.  My grandfather was the greatest storyteller I've ever known.  He rooted me deep in the Oklahoma red dirt, and I think it shows in my poetry.

My favorite kind of Oklahoma landscape

Sherry: I love it when that red dirt seeps into your poems. Two of your recent poems that I really really love are “Getting Old” and “Blessed”. Let’s include them here. Would you tell us a bit about each poem?

Getting Old

My bad witch
is fat
and contented.
She picks her teeth
with my good
witches bones.
Gray springs free
from my braid, but I've made

peace with the griefs
that I own.
I'm a Buddha that bakes and drives carpool.
I'm a shrew with hands full of hell.
The ways of the world can't shock me anymore,
but I still astonish myself.

Kelli:  I'm afraid that I don't really have a good story for this one.  I think this was a poem that I wrote for the New Year.  Sort of a personal celebration.

Sherry: I love her picking her teeth with her good witch bones! Delightful!

Blessed

I'm the taste on the lion's tongue.
Wild mother
of wilder young.
Sun, salt
sugar, sweat,
breasts -
blessed.

Kelli:  Ah, this one I have a story for!

A couple of years ago, my family and I toured a tiger rescue.  At one point during the tour, we were able to interact with the tiger cubs.  While I was sitting in the enclosure, one of the tiger cubs bounced up to me and began licking my hands.  A young woman (a tourist from India; I have to mention that because she had the most gorgeous, lilting accent) watched the cub for a moment, then said, "You're blessed."  Her tone was this mixture of matter-of-factness and awe; it gave me shivers.  It felt like a sign to me.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that tiger cubs just like sunscreen.

My husband and I with my little cub friend.

He's actually a Liger - a tiger-lion mix.

Sherry: Oh, he is so adorable!!! It was a sign, I have no doubt! Animals sense a person's spirit. I always trust when they like someone...and when they don't. I love this poem so much. And I would so adore patting a tiger cub. Sigh.

Would you like to pick another? (Cant get enough, lol! I really love “Workhorse”, for one……..)

Kelli: Well, since I do take requests . . .      

Workhorse

Give me the weight; my back is strong.

I've done time in the traces, it's where I belong.

There is solace in knowing just what I am -

a workhorse plodding slow.

Plodding slow

and plodding home.

Look at my hands to see my true face.

They work wonders without waste.

This may not be the story I intended to write,

but this is the language of my life.

So what's one more brand new year unfolding -

I've got the same sweat on my brow.

I've bargained my penance and starved for forgiveness;

I'm fat with forgetting now.

A workhorse at the plow.

Fat with forgetting now.

Sherry: I adore "I'm fat with forgetting now." This is just brilliant, Kelli. I think we can all relate to "this may not be the story I intended to write". But it's our lives; it's what we have. Do you have any writing goals for 2018?

A view of my neighbourhood from the walking path

Kelli: For about the first 30 minutes or so of 2018, I had a few writing goals, but I ended up changing my mind.  I don't want to ask more of poetry than it can give, or burden it with expectations.

Sherry: Oh, I love that: not asking more than poetry can give. That is likely how we keep our work fresh, not flogging it. What activities do you enjoy when you aren’t writing?

Kelli:  I'm an avid reader; if I have any downtime, you can bet I have a book in my hand.  I'm crazy ridiculous about professional basketball.  And, naps!  I love naps.

My vegetable garden in summer

Sherry: Thank you so much, Kelli, for this visit. It's always good to catch up with you. I love the photos of your part of the world. Say "hi!" to Baby Puppy for us! Maybe she will share a poem with us one of these days?

Wasn't this a lovely visit, my friends? Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

POEMS OF THE WEEK by MAMA ZEN, ROMMY DRIKS AND JAE ROSE

We have a treat for you today, my friends, a poem each by Kelli Simpson, well-known as Mama Zen, who blogs at  another damn poetry blog, (which is anything but! Smiles), Rommy Driks, of  Kestril's Rhythms and Groove, and Jae Rose, who writes at her blog  of the same name. Each poem took my breath  away, and I thought the combined effect of all three together would certainly brighten your day. Enjoy!

Mother Wichita

Old Mother Wichita wets with twilight.
Blackjacks bruise purple but for the green

lichen half-rubbed away hip-high
to an old bison's itch.

A rich robe of Indian Blanket sways and drapes
the hill to hollow hovered

by a red-tailed hawk circling
in the blue becoming gold becoming thick

with cicadas, fireflies,
and mockingbird song.

Summer light dies slow,
lingers lazy and long.

Then she sighs herself into a star
for night to wish upon.


Sherry: I am sighing myself, at your beautiful closing lines. Your imagery is so vivid, Kelli. This is beautiful.

Kelli: "Mother Wichita" is about the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near where I grew up in southwestern Oklahoma.  The Wichitas are one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth; the Wichita tribe believed that their first ancestors sprang from the rocky points of the range.  

Today, the refuge is home to a large herd of bison and acres and acres of untouched mixed grass prairie.  To say that it is beautiful, inspiring, and humbling, is to say the very least.

Dennis Skogsbergh Photography

Sherry: It is such a beautiful landscape. I can see how it inspires your muse. Thanks, Kelli, for this wonderful share.

In Samantha's Shoes

Dinner’s in the fridge.

Don’t forget Tabitha’s bedtime story.

Make sure Darren Jr does his homework.

I’ve laced up my take-no-prisoners,

Valkyrie-on-a-broomstick, hell-yes

you’ll-hear-me-roar boots.

You smiled at me,

while I decided between

belladonna or datura -

made me want to reach

for damania instead.

I love these boots.

But I also love the slippers

we’ve made of our love -

the warm, mmm-so-cozy,

love-rare-lazy-afternoons-with-you,

strong-enough-to-go-through-the-wash,

still-sturdy-after-so-many-years slippers.

But tonight, there are great, odiferous, pestilent

hydras to contain and a coven waiting for me to rise.

“The hydra doesn’t stand a chance,” you say

before we kiss and I fly.

Sherry: I love this! Especially, "the hydra doesn't stand a chance". 

Rommy: In Samantha's Shoes came about as a response to a prompt given over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads, Poetry Through the Eyes of Carol Ann Duffy. The prompt asked us to pay homage to Duffy's style by creating a love poem using a common every day image. 

I don't know what specifically called to me about creating a poem around beloved TV witch Samantha from the show Bewitched. Perhaps it was a perverse need to add an element of the fantastical anyway to the main conceit (the idea of a mature love being as comfortable as a cozy pair of slippers). Perhaps it's just that I love playing with a bit of pop culture from time to time in my poems. I've written about Molly Grue (from The Last Unicorn) and Phaedra no Delaunay (from Kushiel's Dart). Either way, I really was charmed by the way it turned out.

Sherry: And we are charmed as well. Thanks for this, Rommy.

Autumn

Autumn licks at the corner of our existence 
We are all at once ready and able 
Time ticks on 
Hatter sings and Joker dances 
The peppermint clouds and cinnamon dust waft through the window
Another day
Another day 
Crisp leaves and gentle breezes 
We gather them up like treasures 
Keep them in our pocket
Wait for another year
Another year
I am sure that the breeze will come and wash away the darkness
Autumn comes
Winter stays 
Summer lingers in the background 
We will wait and gather stones 
Open the window and let the light prevail.

Sherry: I love the hope in this poem, opening the window to let the light prevail. Beautiful, my friend.

Jae Rose: This poem came to be solely from the prompt at Midweek Motif: Autumn. I tried to make it more upbeat than my usual scribbles.

Sherry: And you succeeded, my friend.  Thank you for the share, and for lifting our hearts.

Thank you, Kelli, Rommy and Jae Rose, for the wonderful poems, which we very much enjoyed. And for your faithful participation at Poets United through the years. We so appreciate you.

Do come back, my friends, to see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

I Wish I'd Written This

The Coyote And The Peacock

For beauty, the coyote carried the peacock

across the desert in his teeth.

The sand was a sear on his paws,

but his trot was steady, and his grip was gentle.

Six sleeps, six fires in the sky.

Six star spun lullabies, six wakings.

For beauty, the coyote carried the peacock

across the desert in his teeth.

For beauty, the coyote swam the river

with the peacock slung on his back.

The blood warm current dragged

at his fur.  The mud mother

called for his bones.  But his paddle

stayed sure and his head held

just high enough above the water.

For beauty, the coyote swam the river

with the peacock slung on his back.

In the desert and river, beauty's as fleeting

as sugar dissolved on the tongue.  The river

stained the peacock's feather a dull red.

The desert blemished his eyes

near blind.  The coyote looked, but could not find

the beauty that he had carried and that had carried

him so far.  The coyote learned that beauty is beauty

is beauty, but is not love.
The peacock learned the hunger of a coyote.

– Kelli Simpson ('Mama Zen')

Kelli Simpson describes herself as 'a mother and poet living in Norman, Oklahoma'. She says that she 'still believes in newspapers, books with pages, and poetry that rhymes'.

We know her better as Mama Zen of 'another damn poetry blog'. Besides the blog, Kelli's work has most recently appeared in Bop Dead City, Cape Rock Poetry, Five: 2: One #sideshow, andThe Five-Two. 

I wish I'd written many of Kelli's poems, actually – and this one in particular. It appeared on her blog very recently and was shared in our latest Poetry Pantry; many of you will have seen it already. 

I normally wouldn't share something again here quite so soon; I'd let you forget it awhile, so you could then relate to it (almost) anew. But there's no way you're going to forget this one; it's so outstanding. So let's enjoy it again right now.

It has interesting origins! When I asked Kelli what she herself might say about it, she told me: 'When I started this poem, I was actually thinking about illegal immigration on the U.S. southern border.  Down there, human smugglers are called coyotes.  That was the seed. The poem that sprouted from it is quite different, but I think strains of the original idea are still evident once you know that they are there.'

Yes, I think so too. The peacock being carted like cargo across desert and river, for instance. Also, Coyote is the trickster, and I imagine people smugglers must be pretty tricksy. And when the living cargo are no longer of use to the smugglers, they may end up dead – at least, that is sometimes what happens to those who try to reach Australia from other countries; I expect it is much the same the world over.

But some poems have minds of their own and dictate the way they want to go. This poem did indeed become something else. In the comments at Kelli's blog, I called it a fable and several people agreed with me. Someone likened it to Aesop's. Others said it was even more than that: a parable. Googling definitions ruled out parable however, on the grounds that, while both are stories with a moral lesson, parables don't include animals or inanimate objects as characters. Fables do. 

Certainly both characters in the poem learn a lesson at the end, though perhaps not quite so straightforwardly 'moral' as those in Aesop's fables. 

It could be described as 'mythic' too – closely related to 'fable' – except that myths usually explain some social or natural event, and here there is no such explanation. Instead there is mystery. For instance, the number six – what's that all about? It might just be the time the journey happened to take, but the repetitions seem to invest that particular number with deep meaning, albeit a meaning we can't grasp. It feels magical. We have been taught that seven is a magical number, and if it was that we could accept and almost gloss over it – but six? That must be a very specific magic, which no-one's told us about before. Yes, a mystery. (A gentle mystery at that point, with the coyote careful of the precious peacock.)

So the story is intriguing, fascinating, appealing to something primal in us that hungers for desert and stars and epic journeys. But even more than the story, I respond emotionally, viscerally, to the beautiful language – the cadences, the repetitions, the subtle alliterations, the imagery and phraseology, the measured rhythms that make even the most arresting ideas seem absolutely right. ('The mud mother / called for his bones'; 'the beauty that he had carried and that had carried / him so far'.)

It calls to our imaginations, persuades us with its narrative and its language, and then saddens us with the inevitability of the ending. It seems a fragment of some whole mythic world in which the coyote and the peacock exist. I want one (any) of my favourite fantasy authors to create that world and show me where these two characters fit. At the same time, I don't really want them explained and contextualised; that would destroy their splendid mystery. I'm glad the poem leaves room for our own imaginings. 

'Fable' is  the origin of the word 'fabulous'. In every sense, this is surely a fabulous poem.

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors.

Poems of the Week: Songs for Our Daughters

Recently, my friends, I happened upon wonderful poems written about their daughters by Margaret Bednar, whose blog is now titled Of Verse, Poesy and Odes - My Poetic Journey, De Jackson of Whimsygizmo's Blog, and Kelli Simpson, aka Mama Zen, of another damn poetry blog. Each poem took my breath away, and I thought they would work very well together to bring you a moving experience. For this one, you may want to have a tissue nearby, as these proud poets present their spectacular daughters.

I See Her

I'm one among many,
middle school auditorium
squeezed in tightly
with anticipation
lights dim, room hushes

voices ring out
try to harmonize center-stage -
the loudest note, off key
as young warblers part
for my daughter's solo.


The crowd fades as I
sit transfixed
as the soft light


caresses
her angled cheeks, full lips -
dances down her lithe form
fingertip to toe, arabesque -
silhouetting her figure,
more hour-glass than boxy


as she sings, soprano
of love flirtatious
exuding confidence


and then
she blends back in
harmonizing with the other children


and I see her as if for the first time
still beaming, but now
with a tear in my eye.

Sherry: Wow, Margaret, what a poised, accomplished and talented young woman! I am impressed. I can feel your maternal pride, and the wonder of one's child emerging as so talented and radiant a being. I resonate with the tear: the prayer that life will allow that wholeness and sparkle to endure. Thank you for this.

Margaret: This poem was originally written for my daughter who is now a freshman in college (studying drama). But I think it also applies to my youngest (five years later). She sang the Sondheim song "What More Do I Need" and this poem sort of went through me again.

As my daughters grow into young women, and as much as I admire and enjoy seeing them mature, a part of me will always see them as my sweet little girls, with wings on their backs, ballet skirts, hair adorned with flowers, and their hands reaching out for mine. Poetry is often capturing layers of a moment, an experience encapsulated in a few seconds....I have many of these etched within my heart, and this poem is one of a few that attempt to share my wonder and joy with them. 

Sherry: I can see those little girls with wings on their backs! And we mothers, aunts and grandmas resonate with remembering those beloved little ones, even as we encompass and take pride in their blossoming into young adults. 

De wrote a poem about her daughter who was also singing - rocking along with a recent hit that has a powerful message for girls. I have included the song, to underline the message of the poem. Let's listen, and be further inspired.

Listening to my 13-year-old daughter sing Alessia Cara
on an ordinary Thursday night

by whimsygizmo

But there’s a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark
You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are
And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful.

– Alessia Cara, Scars To Your Beautiful

She’s rocking
her algebra with her dad, and belting
out these lyrics at the top of her
gorgeous lungs and doing something
called point slope variation or somesuch
and I don’t even know what that is. And
she’s sassy and spicy and already puts up
with nobody’s nonsense, and she sings
these words of scars and beauty and truth
and I know she knows them, know she
feels them, but I also know the world will
knock her around a little, fight some of
this truth out of her. And I want to wrap
her back tight in that blanket she loved
and weave my fingers through her tiny
hands and sing her something simple,
some la la lu lullaby that might help her
sleep. Keep singing, Love, I want to say.
Even when the world tells you to stop,
even when it’s all too loud and you’re no
longer proud of everything you are. Even
when the voices in your head are the
loudest of all and they lie and cheat and
steal your heart. Even when you’re broken.
Even though you’re worn. Even when the
sky is falling but the stars are not. Even
when you’re caught between the hardest
places and you’ve lost all traces of the you
you know. Even when the world moves
too slow, too fast, too much past, too long
now. Even when you’ve forgotten how, sing.
Give those lungs the breath they crave, that
heart its uncaged beat, its feathered-hope
treatise with its own chambered skin. Raise
your eyes. See that moon, reflector of Light.
Smile. Trace your scars. Begin.

"Pure Joy"

De's beautiful daughter

Sherry: A spectacular poem, spectacular video and spectacular daughter. Triple header. I am pumped!

De: My girlie is a poem. So much joy and laughter and sass in one small package. Right now she is everything I wasn't, at her age: confident, joyful, in love with the world. I pray every day that she holds onto that fire. I'm so thankful for artists like Alessia Cara who remind our girls that they're beautiful, just the way they are. Fearfully and wonderfully made, and made to take the world by storm.

Sherry: I hope she holds onto that wholeness, too, De. And I suspect she will, because her mom loves and believes in her.

Mama Zen's poem about her daughter is perfect for closing this feature. Her writing is as strong and fearless as her love for her daughter. Let's take a look.

I Sing, Daughter

I sing, daughter,
of sacred spaces,
woman's places
of birth and breast
unblessed
by any preacher's prayer.

Bring, daughter,
your shivers and night.
They're flesh givers, ripe
fruit for your lips
to curve your hips
and sweeten the shine of your hair.

I'll carry, daughter,
the pits in my palm,
proverb and psalm,
to where land meets the water
and offer them, daughter,
to the East, to the Earth, to the Air.

Let us sing, daughter,
of sacred spaces,
woman's places
of birth and breast,
and rest -
blessed by a woman's care.


Sherry: Wow. The fullness of this, and the mystique of womanhood, with its sacred spaces, fair takes my breath away in this poem.

Kelli: This poem is intensely personal to me. It's a response to the push / pull of mothering a teenage girl. Becoming a woman is a long, difficult process. So is bearing witness to the becoming. "I Sing, Daughter" is an offering, of sorts; a promise to my daughter  that there is beauty and power in womanhood. It is a celebration. It is a welcome.

Sherry: Yes, I feel all those things in your poem, feel your Mother Lion strength, protection, pride and joy. It makes my heart sing, for all girls entering womanhood who are fortunate enough to have strong protective mothers, who totally have their backs. 

Thank you, Kelli, Margaret and De, for gracing us with these affirming, proud and loving poems to your beautiful daughters. Each one moved me and made me happy for your daughters.

My friends, I hope you have enjoyed these fine offerings as much as we have. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!