parents' day

I love poetry, and after reading this one yesterday, I had to share.  It's lovely.

Parents' Day
by Sharon Olds

I breathed shallow as I looked for her
in the crowd of oncoming parents, I strained
forward, like a greyhound held back on a leash,
then I raced toward her. I remember her being
much bigger than I, her smile of the highest

wattage, a little stiff, sparkling
with consciousness of her prettiness—I
pitied the other girls for having mothers
who looked like mothers, who did not blush.
Sometimes she would have braids around her head like a
goddess or an advertisement for California raisins—
I worshipped her cleanliness, her transfixing
irises, sometimes I thought she could
sense a few genes of hers
dotted here and there in my body
like bits of undissolved sugar
in a recipe that did not quite work out.
For years, when I thought of her, I thought
of the long souring of her life, but on Parents' Day
my heart would bang and my lungs swell so I could
feel the tucks and puckers of embroidered
smocking on my chest press into my ribs,
my washboard front vibrate like scraped
tin to see that woman arriving
and to know she was mine

i want to write something so simply

i want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and although it be my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think -
no you will realize -
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your own heart,
had been saying.
~ Mary Oliver

Waiting for winter . . .

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

~ Robert Frost ~

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Summer

Just for a season

no schedules, no plans, nowhere to be

listen to the rain fall, smell the scent of fresh pine

late nights, night games, late-overs

time for each other, time to breathe

finding balance once again

seeking simplicity.