these days

In the days of poop, the feces of old, young, cat, and dog,
I am flooded, mudded.

Overflow of sound-
the dog going psycho in the backyard,
cats scratching at the door,
a groan, snoring coming from Dad's room.

I hear my daughter
whining, crying, burping and laughing,
asking for candy, orange juice, carrots.

I hear the local news,
mouths blaring rape, sodomy, torture
murder.

Music from the kid's channel blares
from the flat screen.

These days, it's 2am quiet
all day loud.

These days, I lift my father from the floor.
These days, I throw away too many diapers,
clean up too much poop, blood and piss.

These days, I cook for four.
These days, an un-rushed shower is bliss.

These days, we are always behind on housework.

These days, I read mostly children's books, and find comfort
in my father still being able to read to my daughter.

These days, I don't even try to look ahead or above the flood.
I just float in it.

In this rain-soaked sweater,
the shoulders of my heart carry
too much.
The long day stretches like
a kindergarten line,
a row of to-do's:
grade, download, print, cook, type,
change diapers,


holding you as you giggle, smile, toot.

The white school walls tell a story
through the cracks and blank stares
The silence makes it that much harder
to leave you.

When I fill up the spaces with your face,
I can do this.
When rain makes my whole body heavy,
your voice can sing me light again,
whispering through me like a soft note.

...but leaving you still makes me sad,
and when you go, I'll be sadder--

lying in the grass,
remembering your castle we made
from cardboard boxes and a tent
and a ground cloth.

I won't want you to go there,
wherever it is you will go,
and I'll be looking through
the primary-colored panels
out into the back yard,

wishing your swing was still up,
your slide in use
your toys scattered--
red blue and yellow flags of joy
only because you played with them.

There is something so perfect in your expressions--
your eyebrows angled, posed
just right for each occasion.

Love will never be a big enough word,
but I can't stop telling you:
more than all the stars in the sky,
more than all the lightning bugs in all the swamps
of all the world,
more than all the fish in the seas,
wider than the ocean.

Every day I think how you don't have your daddy,
how you may never have him
...but some holes are bigger than others,
fingerholes patched
fist holes spackled
heart holes prayered, over and over.

August 16th, 2012

In the corners
of our lives where all the lint,
loose threads, dog and cat hair
scrap metal, yarn, wood chips,
sawdust and dead skin gather-
we survive, even thrive.

We inhabit those angles
where it's easy to nestle,
hard to leave,
where rain might make a puddle

with mud or pretty oil
and where it is so
so messy...but we don't care.

We sit on top of it all,
or sleep in a tent (just to have room),
and we are hungry and thirsty
and dead with fear

but somehow still grow
in this stick forest of rotten trees
trash and refuse
ready to be restored
revived
rewritten.

demented

For 17 months, I forgot to write,
and experience
overrode
everything

...so now the voice,
the face is a mother voice
a care.taker. face.

Glowing in the dark means
something new now,
and mother means me.

Daddy became a character
from a short story I wrote years ago:
He might as well smoke cigars
and play chess naked,
think the teenage girl next door is his wife.

...and I'm not so great at being their eyes, ears, and brain.

It's funny to think my brother didn't know
the difference between dementia and demented.
He learned the hard way.

...and I learned a new meaning for face
as mine has changed so drastically

cataclysmically changed
...and there are ugly, patchy
yellowed wings
emerging
but I can't straighten them up
or make them fly right.

castles

in a sandy place
we lose our footing
but after a rain
we learn to make sand castles

the joke and the puddles

yesterday: writing a story
of what I thought was truth
or longing
or heartbreak
or love

they must have been playing a joke
when they showed me that
something they called love-
in between the sheets, candles,
a kiss in the rain
it must be the biggest joke I know to call that LOVE

and when I met her,
and every day I hold my daughter,
God's flawlessly knitted truth
like a prize,
a gift opened into LOVE

and that light beaming
all over me with a word "Mama"
or a look. in. my. eyes.
with a tiny hand in mine,
that brilliant flower,
with more color than
all the puddles with oil
in all the parking lots in the world


the faucets on all sides explode
into a watery dance
and I am blessed with too much water

cracked bark lets in light

the tree's branches are too heavy
so she grows a bigger trunk
stronger bark, more cracks
to let in the light

they carve their names into her trunk
but she has the will to live
to nurture her leaves
veins baring, weeping sap

they bore holes into her body
and her leaves are falling:
red, yellow, brown

there are lots of nests-
the Carolina Wrens, baby Robins
those eggs cracking too
with wet new life

she embraces those babies
in her branches
but when the wind blows,
the cradles rock,
she is scared too

some creaking, snapping
bending and breaking
but the babies survive
and she soaks in the life

no such thing as reason

when I want to reach
the unreachable

man in a yellow cab
leaving town all day long
leaving me and her and
all who care

when I think about "us"
or when we held hands
or when we named her
or when we looked
together
in the mirror

or saw her hair for the first time
emerging from me

because I don't want to remember
red scraping cutting words
and his impatience
with everything from the internet
to his shoes

and reason has no place in this poem

because I almost forgot myself
being a mother to his child
listening to him

because there is a stench in
his yard, behind his house,
under his bed,
and I didn't make it

but I did smell it
like it smelled good
and I took it home and wallowed
like a happy dog in it

and there is no such thing as reason
thinking of him

Here We Are in a Recent Pic!

the "genius baby" list!

I wrote a list today of things that Izzy has learned over the past month (She'll be 11 months tomorrow). It was enormous!

Highlights:
-she blows kisses

-she dances (knees bending, arms flapping wildly, hands clapping), but has to hold on or be held to do so

-knows how to drink out of ANYTHING...water bottle, sippy cup, regular cup, plastic bottle, Camelbak! and straw

-can pet the cat and dog gently with open hand

-shares food with cat and dog and anyone who is around!

-can brush her hair (and mine!)

-can brush her teeth

-opens and closes cabinets, doors and drawers-she loooves the Tupperware cabinet!

-knows how to help put her arms in and out of sleeves, but hates putting on pants (hehe)

-can feed self with spoon...messily of course

-she is very close to walking!! (can stand on her own if she forgets no one is helping :)

Be Still

God gently rid me of my fear.

Something so comforting in the abusive words, the ride of addiction, hearing his voice, the lies and knowing at least he’s still alive.

Seeing his unshaven face, thinking I can hold his heart in my hands, like his face, and make it clean and new.

He told me, “You’re not making this easy.” I wanted to explode.

And every time I see our daughter, every time I hug her and feed her and rock her and watch her sleep, I think of him, not doing those things.

And if I join my thoughts to God’s I lose sight of him, and am afraid I’m abandoning him.

Forgetting that being still is the only option, that I won’t change him, that any doing for him is doing for naught.

I want to fill the stillness.

Being alone with God is hard sometimes. It requires silence.

Silence seems useless, but when I’m in the noise, I die, over and over again with him.

This is my daughter, Israel Elizabeth Hoover. I have been spending the last 8 months loving her so so immensely. She is unbelievable. One of my good friends, Colleen, who is in her 80s, has given probably the most profound and accurate description of Izzy after having only met her and been around her for 30 minutes or so. She said, "She's intense." This is very true. When she was born, they put her on my chest immediately, and she looked at me with her dark eyes, wide, directly into mine. Since then, when she meets people or encounters new situations, she stares very seriously. She smiles and giggles and is a very happy child, but she is a thinker...a watcher...a listener. She loves to explore, as I think most children do, but she loves blocks, puppets and simply stares at and studies every inch of everything in her hands and within her sight. She also wants to touch and taste everything. Again, I think this is part and parcel because of her age and stage, but I also think she studies on such an intensive level as I have never ever ever seen in anyone.

Needless to say, I am extremely proud of her. I also have never experienced such a love as being a mother. I am totally immersed. I have really not written more than a tiny stitch since she was born. I can't wait till my words and hands catch up with all the feelings and experiences I'm having with Israel.

last trimester

I've been out of the gates for awhile now
pushing towards something bigger than me
bigger than my dreams, bigger than this belly

waddling maybe

connecting my life to some new someones
plugging into this bigness is big business

whatever history I knew, I am changed
will be transformed

before: teacherfrienddaughterchildsinglewomanselfishtalker

after: childwifemotherloverlistenerclotheswashermenderbathroomcleanerdishwashercook

This is what I wanted.
Funny to say it. Even funnier to become it.

I can see you moving
bathtub water too shallow
for all this belly

you grow

warmth, light, a newness
something so round, so whole

every image I conjur in this worldly mind
is inept

maybe ones used for centuries--

the egg-
smooth, fragile,
dropped carefully into place
to be warmed nurtured,
a safe place with mother

the flower--
as you emerge from the growing place
bud into light and liquid,
I notice each stem, leaf, bud, petal

precious and perfect
a conversation in my belly
I can't understand
and could never have imagined

all in this body worn by earth and time
and thought

all awkward in light of you

in the air of waiting

it is the time for waiting

i have your clothes in the closet
shirts on the top bar
pants on bottom

your socks in the drawer
all white

i cry and listen
to the TV in the other room

as you grind your teeth
and listen to the other men
smacking their lips in sleep

it is the time for waiting

i have her clothes in the closet
0-3 months hanging

others in a box under my bed
her blankets and bibs

the cradle is ready
casters attached

i pet the cat
listening to the song of the
air conditioner

as she floats
somersaults
takes her time

it is not my time to do
and that's what it means to wait

it's only prayer time

and prayer doesn't get lost
in air that's alive

Gah Lee!

:) It's been waaay too long since I've been here! I've been without my computer since February, and life has gone incredibly fast since then in so many ways. I'm 26 weeks pregnant with a little girl named Israel Elizabeth. I am engaged. I moved to Florence, AL.

I plan to get back into the blogging world, writing, reading all my fav blogs, etc. I missed you guys. I hope you'll all still visit at some point.

I've been enjoying pregnancy a lot. My mom says I notice all the details. I try to. I am so in love already. Though I had pretty severe nausea for 5 months, I'm feeling better now, and being able to feel her moving around makes the experience that much more real. Izzy flips and slides around inside me quite often! She's almost 2 lbs now. I have a picture of my belly on my profile. I'm getting huge! I love my pregnant belly.

I'm hoping to get past my writing slump and begin writing some poetry again soon.
I've been writing to my fiance who is out of town right now on a regular basis.
I've also been writing to Izzy in a journal. I hope she enjoys reading it one day.

I pray you are all well, and I'll write more soon!
H

a poem he sent me today

I fell in love with the ocean
and I think of you every
time I look out over it and

always will that's where I'm
going that's where I'll be

waiting when the time
is right I meant what I said
and I always will now that
I understand real God given

soul connected love I'll be
there It's not easy to follow
Him sometimes

but you will find your way
but it won't be back to me it'll

be ahead and above

You stopped running.

I go faster and faster.
I stumble, skin my knees;
my hips and ankles ache.

I move, and
though I take lots of rests,
I move again.

When I saw you weren't
beside me anymore, I called
and called.

I am still calling.
I can't wait for you to catch up.

Even if I don't ever
hear your shoes thud,
your breathing, even if
I can't ever see your eyes again,
my pace won't falter.

Sidewalks and asphalt
rocky paths and fallen trees
dirt trails and sandy walkways-
He told me to keep walking,

so that's what I do,
and I pray God breathes into you
once more,
and you will be there,
running next to me again.

re-vision

There's something called discernment,
and it's hard to have from 521 miles away.

It's tough to believe you from that far,
and I want to believe

every single word, from trust to sister
but the rain hasn't come, and neither

has the light, only the waiting.

It's about time for me to stop looking
at you, not being able to see that far
anyway,

turn off the sound, and the picture,
and live in the light of today.