When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

As a quiet little seedling
    Lay within its darksome bed,
To itself it fell a-talking,
    And this is what it said:

“I am not so very robust,
    But I’ll do the best I can;”
And the seedling from that moment
    Its work of life began.

So it pushed a little leaflet
    Up into the light of day,
To examine the surroundings
    And show the rest the way.

The leaflet liked the prospect,
    So it called its brother, Stem;
Then two other leaflets heard it,
    And quickly followed them.

To be sure, the haste and hurry
    Made the seedling sweat and pant;
But almost before it knew it
    It found itself a plant.

The sunshine poured upon it,
    And the clouds they gave a shower;
And the little plant kept growing
    Till it found itself a flower.

Little folks, be like the seedling,
    Always do the best you can;
Every child must share life’s labor
    Just as well as every man.

And the sun and showers will help you
    Through the lonesome, struggling hours,
Till you raise to light and beauty
    Virtue’s fair, unfading flowers.

^{for Gabrielle Civil & Madhu H. Kaza}

Do not trust the eraser. Prefer
crossed out, scribbled over monuments
to something once thought correct
. Instead: colors, transparencies
track changes, versions, iterations
. How else might you return
after discards, attempts
and mis takes, to your 
original genius
?

You are enough

Divinity flows in your fingertips
        with light so radiant
        every beat of your heart
a victory march
made of whole universes
        stitched by the hands of creation
        with flawless design
a prophecy You fulfill perfectly with every breath

        You

The sun wouldn’t shine the same without it
Creation is only waiting for You
                to smile back at it

Do you see it yet?

You are enough
        For the birds to sing about
        For the seeds to sprout about
        For the stars to shoot about

        Do you see it yet?

        Gardens in your speech
Fields of wildflowers in your prayers
        Lighthouses in your eyes
    No one else can see it for you

You have always been enough
You will always be enough

Your simple act of being is enough

            Do you see it yet?

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
     And he said:
     Your children are not your children.
     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
     They come through you but not from you,
     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
     For they have their own thoughts.
     You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
     You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
     Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
     For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

All the while he talks to
the boy, their son, on the phone,
she is interrupting, telling him something
to say, not to say, indicating
that she needs to talk to the boy
herself. Rather than dampening
her enthusiasm or trying
to listen to both at once, finally
he hands her the phone. And rather
than resentment, what he feels
inside himself is the primordial
upwelling of tenderness.

Outside the grocery store
laden with the sweat
of tanned field workers
we stand          little girls in winter coats
our hands hold signs leaflets
our dark long hair waist length
one straight, one curly
we say to the people
who walk up to the glass door

don’t buy the lettuce here—
they aren’t good to their workers

I don’t recall anyone
said anything back
or who stood with us
I remember my sister
next to me,      us
in our Sunday velvet best
she     beret and red plaid jacket
me     white rabbit skin muff
little brown girls with picket signs
rosy cheeks, big black eyes
legions of ghosts
above              behind
angels wing over us
ancestor feathers beat
in the invisible breeze
each time someone enters
or exits the building—
with a bag
full of groceries
oranges and eggs
celery and grapes.

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
    Dark like me—
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
    Black like me.