Yesterday, we lost an hour. Which reminded me that I've lost far more time than that in the last year and a half. Life has been good, if fast and absolutely full. Since my last post, I've traded a dream job (teaching American and British literature at the University of…
58 Posts
All posts tagged Poetry
Tick-tick-tick
No single thought is more important than any other, at least at the outset. The trees remain bare all over the city. From my chair on the third floor of the main library I can see across the city to the hills on the opposite side of the fjord, and…
Shuddering
I felt my mind shudder. Like a disused door pulled unexpectedly over warped floorboards and open for the first time in many dusty years. Like a cold engine under the rusted hood of a car long parked in the drive. Like the thick, taut, chestnut skin over the hock of…
Before Words
On the floor, she kicks and kicks and looks at me and kicks some more, softly and firmly, so that I might expect little grunts of effort --like a piglet or a tennis player-- but she is silent. I lift her to me, glad at the breadth of her abiding…
I am egg.
I am egg. I am shell, white, yolk. I am fertilized. I am haven. I am universe. I am holding on. I am necessary. I am perpetual. I am passing the time and counting down, but also keeping a record of these moments. I am the only one who can…
Mama Quote for Morsdag: Not Our Children
It's Mother's Day in Norway. My first. Before becoming pregnant, I think I would have raised an eyebrow at a first-time pregnant woman celebrating the day. After all, I haven't had to do any of the classic tough mom things yet. Staying up all night hanging onto a screaming infant.…
Papa Quote: He Will Need This
In honor of Farsdag (Father's Day) in Norway--which happened last weekend, and I missed it--I thought I'd post something sweet and pensive about fatherhood, written by a poet friend of mine. "Practice Makes Permanence: The other night I held my son in my arms and we exchanged a gaze that…
An Unnamed Poem
_____________ I am afraid to name her. What if I call it wrong? If my moniker choice resists story, history, or song? Details of breeding and face, habits, regrets, disgrace... These I'll slap on her like travel stickers on a suitcase, but a name? So much weight. So I wait. One…