Guest post at Vision and Verb: On becoming a gramma

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James 6 months ago, at about 12 hours old

Today I am sneaking out of hibernation to write a guest post at the lovely Vision and Verb (. . . a global gathering of women of this age). My sister Ginnie, a collaborator at V&V (and at her own photoblog Heart & Soul and blog In Soul), asked me to write about being a gramma. I am honored to join the women who write there, but what a challenge it is to gather in my feelings and set them down. Well, here goes. (Oh, and he is 6 months old today.)

Get everything finished beforehand, because it will be some time before you get anything “important” done again.  Keep reading . . . 

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First outdoor blessings with my grandson, 4 months old

1
I have never been a farmer, or farmer’s wife, sweating
fruit lost to hard frost, and livelihood, or praying for rain.
I have never wanted to. (Will you?) We play here.
Our fingers are smooth. But we grieve
our lost plums so soon come. And we will feel
the cold stone in the barn
on a scorching day, and sigh.

2
I have been trying to tell you
about the fanned gusts from hummingbirds.
Look out!
for their ferocious beauty.

3
Are you as warm as I am?
Perfectly?

4
Just between us, we know the
cool cave of solitude
of the mouth
and when to open it.

5
Do you think the bee
was confused when the sage
bloomed plum petals
that look like iris
through needles of rosemary?

6
I wonder when you will first feel
that the road
your tongue takes
out of your own heart’s gate
is one of loneliness?
This is a mixed up place.
For now, join all these birds singing together.

7
Hear the poplars?
They are saying a dappled hello from
Courbet, Sisley and van Gogh.
(See, it isn't always lonely.)

8
This air is a bridge
between us
and all.
All!

9
Creation is what you make
of what you are given
and also
what you are not.
The path in the woods,
and what it passes through.

10
Please feel all this emptiness.
It is absolutely necessary.
May what you give back to it
always be as true
as the small clear stars
of your voice today.


June 2012

It is a hobby farm we live on. We have absolutely not a single apple on our three apple trees, or a single pear on our pear, or plum on our plum. But it is the fruit farmers in Michigan this season I really feel for. The heat in March brought out early blossoms on the trees, and then a hard killing frost in April annihilated the fruit. Pretty much the entire cherry crop has been destroyed, and Michigan is the source of 80% of the world's tart cherries, so you can imagine the impact this has on our state's already wobbly economy. I posted about cherries up North three years ago here.

Here is a minute and a half of video and audio accompaniment out of James's first real outing a couple of weeks ago. I was very moved by the undulations of his tongue, showing that he was meeting nature with it as much as with his ears, eyes and skin. You will hear a small interruption of James's grandpa laughing, then asking me "Where'd Brian go?" and me, grammy, answering, "talkin' to his mom" and you'll see James's grandpa watering his garden. The way James kept gurgling outside when I introduced him to the trees on a walk later made me feel he is simpatico about nature.

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How to read a poem

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It's the middle of National Poetry Month, time to pause for a lesson. Believe it or not, my grandson is nearly three months old. He's a good teacher, and I should not keep his lessons to myself.

How to read a poem

Take him in your lap.

Look deep into his dark eyes.

Watch his arms while they

loop orbits in space

for no apparent purpose.

Let him ride his invisible

bicycle somewhere far—pumping,

pumping, pumping tiny legs,

making your thighs tremble.

See how still his eyes remain.

Fossick the meaning in his fists

where unknown words

are hidden and twirled.

(Don’t worry about the meaning

of those incomprehensible words now.

You can look for them later, together.)

He is telling you something

of where he has so recently been,

where you are desperately

trying to go in your perfectly

silent and heavy red chair.

He is showing you every truth

he has ever known

in a very small package.

When at last he smiles

in the otherwise motionless

residue following the flailings of his body,

you will understand what he means.

April 2012

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Song for James, who got his first vaccines at 2 months yesterday

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Spring children
(a riddle, sort of)

The ground is old in the farmyard

and on it my feet stomp;

but never can I break it,

no one tells me not to romp!

But there are children who play here

who come back every spring

and break through the ground like sunlight

so it doesn’t feel the sting!
 

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poem: little tree

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little tree

for my newborn grandson, James

(I cannot speak this directly to him.
It must be in the second person.
What would happen if I told him what is here?

I am not ready to break anything
that is not yet broken open.
The world has just begun.)

His head is in my hands, mouth open,
eyes half-stupored. He is breathing me,
as if I am winter, to warm in his mouth.
He exhales me back to me.
My voice is a silver blue bead he fingers
with a perfect tongue.

He has not learned to forget
that the earth always has her mouth open,
holding the sea and not swallowing,
nesting the trees for their nesting birds,
breathing the sky and not throwing anything away.


January 2012

Poetry should be heard. Perhaps listen to me read while playing a song for Egon Schiele, below.

Painting "Little Tree (Chestnut Tree at Lake Constance)" by Egon Schiele

Listen to Rachel's song Egon & Gertie. . . .

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My new life

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I type this with one finger while James sleeps on my chest. We are at home in his apartment on his fifth day of life, with his mommy and daddy. Daddy goes back to teaching today. Mommy will have a visit from a nurse to check in.

I have been living in the organic multi-day emergence of a new human being. In some ways it is a blur of minutes, hours and days, without clear delineation of what happened when. Yet we are constantly counting, in the way of civilized humans. The number of hours in labor, of hours pushing, inventory of fingers and toes, how many minutes at the breast, how many poos and pees in 24 hours. Time with its quantities is our way of measuring health and wellbeing, and with the major systems of eating and digestion well established, and my daughter’s healing underway, we ease into the stream and rippling flow of the journey.

All this amid the unspeakable wonder of exquisitely intense intimacy. The now-ness of every second. His phenomenal beauty of face and body. His peaceful countenance. His downy and fragrant temple against my lips. The whisper of his breath, the snuffles and squeaks of his voice, and the quiet smacks of his lips. I have plenty of photos to take with me today when I leave him for home and work. But the feel of his weight on my chest, the sounds of his breath and sighing voice, the scent of his warm head—these will be swaddled in the memory of my senses for a few days, until I snuggle with him again.

I am saturated and unsatiated in love. Yet there is a growing awareness that time and work call me back to their necessities. Just as James will grow past these first days of utter dependence—so beautiful and desirable to me now—I, too, will grow into my life, with new tendrils sprouting from the grafted stem.

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Announcing: my first grandchild

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name: James Lawrence

born: January 18, 2012 (his due date)
Time: 11:17pm

labor: 22 1/2 hours

health: excellent

weight: 6 lbs. 11 oz.

length: 18 inches

energy/personality: still, gentle, graceful

parents: strong, exhausted, besotted

grammy: in love, speechless, listening

"Freedom from Want": Thanksgiving and grandmothers

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What I want is not the turkey on the platter, which seems too big for the spot where Grandma is placing it. And how is she carrying it anyway? My weak wrists would never make it, and the turkey would crash onto the floor. I’d let Grandpa carry it and smile sweetly, basking in the oohs and ahs.

What I want is Grandma herself. And Grandpa. How kind and cuddly they look.

The song associated with Thanksgiving is “Over the River and Through the Woods” which continues with “. . . to Grandmother’s house we go.” I never did such a thing. The only time I went to a grandparent’s house was at the time of Grandma Olive’s death and funeral, in Bayonne, New Jersey, when I was four. I played with toy cars in the steep driveway of my grandmother’s home on the bay. That’s what I remember.

When childhood friends said their grandma died, I thought, big deal. I had no heart pocket for such a relationship.

Grandpa Reuben is the only grandparent I remember, and he was not my mom’s biological dad. He was Grandma Olive’s second husband, who happened to be the cousin of her first, my mom’s dad Sidney. Olive didn’t have to change her last name when she married Reuben. I met Grandpa Reuben twice and was in love with him, the way a girl is in love with her grandpa. He was posh in suits but intensely kind.

Is there a word for being a grandchild orphan?

It is an odd and empty feeling not to have met my grandparents. But it is even odder now to contemplate that my grandparents did not meet all of their grandchildren. Dad’s dad was 70 when he was born; he fought in the Civil War in 1865; he died when Dad was 9. Dad’s mom died in the ‘50s before I was born, the last of eight kids. Mom’s biological dad Sidney was divorced from Grandma Olive and far away when we kids came along. Grandma Olive died when I was four; maybe she held me, I don’t remember. Then there was Grandpa Reuben, a fine substitute, but once on his jostling knees and once after his stroke in a wheelchair is it for memories.

Now, I’m going to be a grandma. When I first found out our daughter was pregnant, I thought I would need advice for my new role, since I had no grandparent memories to speak of. But guess what, there seems to be a heart pocket (think cargo pants) for this relationship after all. Strangely enough, while I’m loving my unborn grandson, it's almost like I'm sitting on my own lap, feeling loved.

Note about the painting: "Freedom from Want" was one of four "propaganda" posters by Norman Rockwell inspired by Theodore Roosevelt's speech to Congress January 6, 1941, urging the country to enter World War II. Read more here.

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concrete poem, and alternate traditional form: family tree

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family tree

while   traveling

at the speed of a car   a particle hovers in the
passenger seat next to me      a neutrino of time and
space travel that I do not need to prove to anyone   or apologize

to the standing cows    for talking to myself like a mad scientist
who is to say he isn’t my self    a particle miracle      I go on
about my dead brother and gasp because he is not old enough
yet to hear about death    not even arrived here in this hubbled air
not having swum the arc through his mother’s arch    that opens
to the courtyard wherein the    family tree spreads limbs
on which my brother,   my father,     my mother have already

ripened and fallen in earth’s gravity    and I tell him
we don’t even know what they are

gravity    or death     or falling

but     soon    he    will
drop    and      be
caught     in
his
mother’s

ivory
hands

then

perched

and

nestled

in the

fork

of her

armpit

and

breast

his head

a plum

the crease

of his mouth open

for the galaxy of milk and I point

to the calf in the farmer’s field holding on to his mother for dear life

from the twig of her teat between the branches of her legs and say see life falls like that

Added note, from wiki: Concrete poetry or Size poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on. 

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11/20/11 7:22am I am reposting the poem without the shape, which may be a distraction this time. Fun to experiment (as Brendan says in his comment), but maybe this poem is better served in a traditional shape. 

family tree

while traveling at the speed of a car
a particle hovers in the passenger seat next to me
a neutrino of time and space travel
that I do not need to prove to anyone
or apologize to the standing cows
for talking to myself like a mad scientist

who is to say he isn’t my self
a particle miracle

I go on about my dead brother and gasp
because he is not old enough yet to hear about death
not even arrived here in this hubbled air
not having swum the arc through his mother’s arch
that opens to the courtyard
wherein the family tree spreads limbs
on which my brother, my father, my mother
have already ripened and fallen in earth’s gravity
and I tell him we don’t even know what they are
gravity or death or falling
but soon he will drop
and be caught in his mother’s ivory hands
then perched and nestled in the fork
of her armpit and breast
his head a plum
the crease of his mouth open
for the galaxy of milk
and I point to the calf in the farmer’s field
holding on to his mother for dear life
from the twig of her teat between the branches
of her legs and say see life falls like that

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Poem: A mother's breasts

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A mother's breasts

My body in the tub, candlelit,
doughy breasts shining, and
because of the baby to come
from my daughter’s body,
in this dream-light of a crone
everything is mother and baby
again, and my breasts cairns
to the memory of my children,
my daughter first, who swam to me
with her thrashing arms, and landed
a starfish hand on one white beach dune,
locked her shell-bud-mouth onto the biscuit
nipple, the soft pebble of her nose
pressed into shelter, the nipple
her doorknob into the hut—
to survive, to awaken, to trust,
to learn before the intolerable comes
with this quivering tongue, this pause
of eyes, this mouth petalled
into smile, the blue milk pooled
in the upturned keyholes at her mouth’s
curls, that this is the beginning
of life. To be kneaded
by the cupped tongue,
her eyes closed now. To be enough.
To be the bread of life.

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In love with love

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Lesley planting our garden 2 1/2 years ago

There is the delusion of falling in love with love. My unborn grandson is a fragile being (and also powerful), and within minutes of his birth (maybe even mere seconds), his foibles will begin to appear, and my own will keep unwrapping, in our miraculous humanness. Something of love’s litany of pleasures remains in the heart, so that we seek another new love. We might reap more joy than sorrow, once again, this time. And when the new love is imperfect, meaning that we, or they, are disappointed, we come to the next fork in the road, able to choose: I will love you even if you do not want me in the way I envision. I will love you even when you are so different than the boy of my dreams. Is a dream a fallacy? Reality’s moment hoped into fairy kingdoms? O blessed are the realities that exceed our dreams. But set my heart in the fertile ground that includes poo in the compost. Rotting matter is what feeds the next fruit of abundance.

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Poem: Meditations in the stitches of a baby quilt

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Meditations in the stitches of a baby quilt

“Pins and needles” tingle
in my fingers
while I push
a tiny needle
through calico
in a quilt for my
unborn grandson.

Years on computer keys
and the bands over nerves
in my wrists
tightened
like a swaddling blanket
too snug: carpal tunnel. However,

my forearms are mighty,
said the chiropractor.
Like the pen.

But not my hands. Knitters fly,
their needles flapping wool sleeves
like the startled wings of pigeons.
I can’t fly that way.

The baby who will squirm
in this quilt will be startled
and cry. Right here in this quilt,
and it will likely be me
who will one day alarm him
with inadvertent
painful surprise
to us both
and I, too, will cry.

This baby will understand
much. He will surprise me
with the utterly
new and completely ordinary
all his own.

My aching hands will pick
him up, worrying
that I could drop him
in a terrifying
moment of weakness. Causing
pain

like when my son
two days old felt the poke
of a needle into his heel
in a bilirubin test
poor jaundiced boy, intentionally
bled for the good of the whole.
I had to escape
to the soft hall
to muffle his cry through the door

like feeling the needle poke
through these cotton layers to find
my left middle finger
on the other side!

Nice name for a boy, bilirubin: Billy Reuben.
Grandpa Reuben. O happy bouncing
knees of old time me. I did not understand
the pain of losing his gabardine lap
in one stroke. Sad, shiny wheel chair.
Downturned moustache.

I’ll wheel him around, this one
before he can walk. Happy
prospect: You will walk.

I have one life to give you.

And you will run it through
in the meadow like
this tiny needle through calico —
     goldenrod, Timothy grass, thistle.

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Lessons and inspiration for a grandma-in-waiting

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"In January it will be so nice while slipping on the sliding ice to sip hot chicken soup with rice . . . " (when I hold my brand new grandson). "Sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice." (Maurice Sendak, Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months)

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince)

"Granny, what was it like when Mummy was me?" (Tasha Tudor, A Time to Keep: A Book of Holidays; this illustration is not from that book, and I'm sorry I don't know which it is from.)

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” (J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, Arthur Rackham, illustrator)

"Well, please, North Wind, you are so beautiful, I am quite ready to go with you."

"You must not be ready to go with everything beautiful all at once, Diamond."

"But what's beautiful can't be bad. You're not bad, North Wind?"

"No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty. So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they are beautiful."

"Well, I will go with you because you are beautiful and good, too."

"Ah, but there's another thing, Diamond:—What if I should look ugly without being bad—look ugly myself because I am making ugly things beautiful?—What then?"

"I don't quite understand you, North Wind. You tell me what then."

"Well, I will tell you. If you see me with my face all black, don't be frightened. If you see me flapping wings like a bat's, as big as the whole sky, don't be frightened. If you hear me raging ten times worse than Mrs. Bill, the blacksmith's wife—even if you see me looking in at people's windows like Mrs. Eve Dropper, the gardener's wife—you must believe that I am doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change into a serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me, for my hand will never change in yours if you keep a good hold. If you keep a hold, you will know who I am all the time, even when you look at me and can't see me the least like the North Wind. I may look something very awful. Do you understand?"

"Quite well," said little Diamond.

(George McDonald, At the Back of the North Wind, Arthur Hughes, illustrator)

"But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden and squeezed under the gate!" (Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit)

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." (Christopher Robin, to Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne, E. H. Shepard, illustrator)

Peter Spier, Rain.

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