Postcard Challenge #4: Forest Poems

So here is the next porcupine adorned postcard from Canada: a challenge to escape to a forest, real or figurative and write.

You know it's been cold when the forest that ends up sparking your imagination is on the side of a mug. Seriously. We've been drinking more tea than the Boston Harbor. 

Something about this image of a tree stirred me. The reflection seemed intriguing to me, the idea that there are two parallel trees growing at the same time. I thought a lot about the tree growing underground, seeking water like the tree above soaks in sun. 

I started reflecting on how that tree grows slowly in the dark, how it moves deeper through thick mud toward what it needs to sustain it and the tree above. It made me, somehow, think of motherhood. 

Sometimes, I'll admit, learning to be a mother who loves like Jesus feels like breaking through clay in the recesses of the earth: slow, hard work that feels like a thousand small deaths to self in seeking real life. 

However, He invited us to drink. As I seek him, I'm finding what I need to sustain me and provide Elisa with the life that will outlast my life and my love for her. I wrote "Roots" to explore this journey a bit. I follow it up with a poem I wrote in the summer for a friend's wedding since it's also about the forest, sort of. 

Enjoy and drink deeply this week, even if it feels like pushing into the dark. 

Aspens

For Michael and Noelle

There is water below land

our feet may have wandered,

the earth laced with veins

flames will not set ablaze.

Tongues of fire crown each dancer

as hectares of hands clap,

jubilee spun and spread

from an old rugged Tree.

Fixing...

It's when you fall asleep like this:

after whirring wheels fix your face

where it faced mine for blocks,

that I know less of fixing it all,

more of fixing our eyes on

the loved All who'll lead us, loved,

home.

On Trails and Towers

Elisa, 

I was convinced this day would be a disaster. I had mumbled and grumbled out of the driveway that I sure hoped the trail was covered so you wouldn't bake in the sun while I wallowed in guilt. We didn't know exact directions. I had read something about a 40 minutes to the tower, and now that I thought about it, that was an eternity. Why didn't your daddy think about these things? It took a winding river of a road and a face of a black bear until I could relax. 

Sometimes, I crush the life out of things because I believe the tight fist of control can save. I've bought the lie that if you plan well enough, you'll never have mistakes, whether or not you can learn from them. It is fear masquerading as provision, protection. 

May you never inherit your mother's white knuckles. You'll miss so much if you do. 

You'll never see mountain laurel if you stop at loose rock steps. 

  

You'll miss flame-bursts of columbine if you step back from bees.

You won't even reach towers if you stop where the trail slants.

And it'll take faith in worn steps to see views like these:

You're the reason I want to keep climbing what scares me.

You're teaching me how to live wide-handedly. May you plan only to be amazed and delighted. And rest knowing He's good, good wherever he leads.

Love,
Your Mama

Happy Half Birthday, Elisa!

So, taking some inspiration from this chica here, I decided to write you a letter, Elisa, to celebrate your 6 month birthday (I can hardly believe it).

Elisa,

So, you and me, chiquita banana, we've been doing this family thing for a whole half a year now. I can't believe that this little bundle

 is now this big girl so full of life.

It has not been easy for us, no ma'am. I will not pretend like it was.

You've had a hard time eating and sleeping and gaining weight, a lot of tummy trouble, a lot of cries that made me cry and crash down to my knees. Being a mommy has made me realize how much I need grace like air to breathe. Your desire for things the way you want them (i.e. sleeping only on our chests for the first three weeks of your life) has made the rule follower in me learn that little people don't follow them.

Yet, you have made me richer in more ways than I can count.

You have taught me patience, gentleness, and wonder.

You have taught me to laugh at myself, to sing, to not take things so seriously, to go slow and laugh with delight when another person walks into the room.

 

You are my greatest gift.

Let me tell you a little about you.

Today at your check up, you were 13 pounds, 12 ounces (10th percentile), 25 inches long (50th percentile), with a head circumference of 17 inches (75th percentile). I always worry if you're big enough. The pediatrician says, "somebody has to be the 10th percentile!" May you be like Shakespeare wrote, "Though she be but little, she is fierce."

Fierce is a great word for you. You're intense. Alert. Focused. Smart.

You're incredibly aware of your surroundings: especially of people, especially of me. You're a social butterfly  who is vibrant and outgoing. I've met more people in our neighborhood in these last six months than we have in the past three years.

You make me laugh.

These past few weeks you've exploded with new tricks.

You can suck your toes.

You can hold yourself up at your favorite toy, the activity table.

You can scoot on your back, turn over on your belly to sleep, and sit up! All this week!

You know what you love. You love when we sing or dance or shake and shimmy. Your favorite song is "My God is So Big, So Strong and So Mighty, There's Nothing My God Cannot Do" (don't forget it!).

You love being outside and trying to eat grass and clover :)

You love to eat, especially pears and avocado.

You can entertain yourself with your Very Hungry Caterpillar book for a long, long time.

You love your daddy and stories and waking up between us.

You're our treasure. Elisa, baby girl, you are making us more and more like Jesus. We're learning to see the world, see people through eyes of wonder and pleasure and delight and love. We're learning that our to-do lists aren't as urgent as your need to try to eat the shamrock plant or sing another round of a silly song in Spanish. We're learning to love you, love people, for who they are and not how much love they can offer back.

Yours is our favorite face to see.

Happy 6 month birthday, honey bunches of oats, our best girl. We love you.

Love, Mommy 

Elisa Meets A Burning Bush...

Your first forsythia flames lemon-yellow...

Enjoying a warm spring day and wonder here today...

What Water I Have...

I recently began re-reading, Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity and Writing, a memoir-style book by author, poet, editor and mother L.L. Barkat. In it, she says this: "When a writer tries to explain his work to me, I will often remind him, 'If you have to explain your work to a reader, that's a sign that something needs to change; remember, you aren't going to be there when the reader puts on his Land's End swim shorts and goes to the pool to relax with your words.'" 

I'm about to do exactly the opposite of what Ms. Barkat suggests, because I want to share an image that has been meaningful to me in the past few days (besides it's too cold for swimming pools now anyway). 

My friend Bethany, had suggested a few weeks ago that I explore my thoughts on motherhood through creative writing, as a way to prepare room in my heart for this new life on the way. Since she is an amazing artist and mother, I stored her words away and have been waiting on an image to begin a poem. 

I began thinking about how rocky and barren our world can be at times. Best not leave it at that. Hello, firstborn. This world has stones. Then, the Holy Spirit gently reminded me of a story I had heard while teaching at Skyline: "The Brave Little Tailor." In it, a little tailor takes on a huge giant in a show-down of challenges. In the first, the giant squeezes a boulder so hard that water pours out. The tailor tricks the giant by squeezing a cheese so hard that the watery whey drips down. The image captured my imagination.

I've been marveling for weeks at how this little baby I've been nourishing in my belly will continue being nourished only by my body for months. I cannot change the fact that the world she is entering is dark, dangerous, and hard. I can sustain her with a pouring out of my life-blood into milk, a small sign of the sacrificial pouring out of a mother's life for her children. 

We are not giants. We are not Moses. We cannot make water pour from rocks and heal this dry and weary land. We can however, nurse, both literally and figuratively, our children by giving of ourselves, trusting that God will do the rest. It might feel like squeezing, but we will be a part of preparing them to be a gift to a thirsty, thirsty world. 

With all of the explaining I'm not supposed to have done out of the way, I'm sharing a peek into my heart, the poem I've written for my daughter: 

Brave Little

This world has stones,
and I am no giant. 
It has lips parched, 
and I cannot squeeze
hard enough for water.
I can only hope the Tailor 
more skilled than I can
make my whey enough 
to whet your voice
for crying out in deserts.

Words to Grow On...

While we're not ready yet to reveal Baby Weaver's name, our minds are full of waiting for this little one and what God might do with her life as she grows, so I wanted to write this week about the verses we have chosen as especially hers.

Awhile ago, I don't remember exactly where or when, I heard about a family that chose a verse for each of their children. They gave these verses like a gift when the child was born, spoke these words over the child, and asked that the verses would characterize the child's life.

To understand the story of the verses we chose, you have to go back almost a year ago. I had been sick since a few weeks before Christmas with mysterious dizziness, joint pain, fatigue, numbness, and weakness. Up to this point in my life, I had been incredibly healthy. I had never been sick for more than a few days, had  taken antibiotics a handful of times, had never broken a bone, never been to the ER.

All of the sudden, I was undergoing tests at the ER, cat scans, blood tests, and visits with specialists! I felt like the life that stretched before me was no longer a fertile field waiting to grow but a desolate wasteland of uncertainty, unidentified illness, and a failing immune system. I questioned if I'd ever get back to the way I had felt before, if we'd ever be able to have babies if my immune system couldn't stabilize, even if I could continue to work with the crushing anxiety that came when the mysterious symptoms arose. I had never been so desperate to hear from God.

As I asked the Holy Spirit for any kind of nourishment, he kept bringing Jeremiah 33 to mind. I didn't recognize the reference, but I remember feeling swept up in God's care when I read the chapter's heading: "Promise of Restoration."

I read hungrily. The chapter begins with nightmarish visions of dead bodies, city under siege, God hiding his face from the city he loved. But as suddenly as it starts, it begins painting a picture of everything being put right again, much like a magical world when a deep curse is broken and all is suddenly awash in green again.

God would transform, could recreate life, so much so that people would "tremble at the abundant peace and prosperity" God would again give. The restoration passage culminated with giving the reason for the restoration: a righteous branch from David's line, a priest and king who could make all things new. I knew this promise: Jesus. These words were like water on a parched tongue. I read them over and over and over, until one day, I could look back and say God truly brought them to fruition in my life. I became pregnant, God healed me of my autoimmune issues, and I was myself again.

Fast forward to choosing a name for our firstborn. We had worked with variation upon variations of first and middle names, toying with sounds and meanings until we finally came up with one that meant to us: God is a promise of new life.

Then came the decision to find a verse to go along with it. The words from the winter came gently, and we decided on Jeremiah 33: 10-16:

¹⁰ “This is what the Lord says: ‘You say about this place, “It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.” Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more ¹¹ the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying,

“Give thanks to the Lord Almighty,
    for the Lord is good;
    his love endures forever.”

For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,’ says the Lord.

¹² “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In this place, desolate and without people or animals—in all its towns there will again be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks. ¹³ In the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah, flocks will again pass under the hand of the one who counts them,’ says the Lord.

¹⁴ “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.

¹⁵ “‘In those days and at that time
    I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
    he will do what is just and right in the land.
¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved
    and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it^[c] will be called:
    The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’

I think my favorite part is when the Lord says, "You say about this place, 'It is a desolate waste....yet..." When I look at my baby girl, when I mouth her name and think of the words we've chosen for her to wear her whole life, I want to remember that what I call a desolate waste is always full of the possibility of God's restoration and achingly new life. 

Whether it is a relationship that seems beyond repair, a world that seems incredibly chaotic, a situation that seems completely devoid of the possibility of redemption, the fact that our child is spinning inside a body that should not have been quiet enough to hold her is a testimony to the fact that God promises restoration and does not fail to provide it. We pray that her life will be one of reminding the most desolate that Jesus can bring life into wastelands now and will one day completely fulfill his promise to make all right once again.

I can't wait to introduce our promise of new life to you. Until then, I hope the words we want her to live into, to grow on can nourish you like they have done for us. Whatever you are facing today, know that restoration is possible when The Lord Our Righteous Savior walks into what we have called impossible waste. There is always, mercifully always, a "yet."