Folding Laundry

There is something about folding laundry.
A quiet, penetrating melancholy about the way my hands move
 that reaches into my core and pulls up the past.
Draws up like water in a bucket the way my mother's hands
 performed this simple task;
 before her, my grandmother's--before that, her grandmother's.
Through ages, this piece of infinite simplicity has persisted.
It has never been a matter of life or death,
 no, it is just a way, a woman's way, of keeping what she loves
 bundled safe, nestled carefully.
Every piece of fabric, cotton light or woolen heavy,
 comes laden with memory.
'Remember then', 'I'll wear this when'..
Today, as I crease, smooth, and stack, I remember:
 the tie-dyed, contented happiness of a drive with my grandmother,
 the clean-cut denim and buttoned cotton of a lecture well-received,
 the green wool that hugged me when I realized I loved my husband,
 the purple wool I wept into when I realized he didn't love me.
Tattered navy that cradled me through my dark days,
 and black lace that tried to prove to me that I was not broken.
The flowing white and grey of finally remembering
 how to dance with wild abandon.
Here in this pile,
 Here is my life. These are my masks and my skins.
Not only do they pull me back, but they push me forward, forward.
Someday, I will do this thing in joy.
Smiling, I will fold the tiny socks and shirts of my first child,
 positively bloomed with love.
Someday, I will do this in sorrow, folding and blessing with salt water
 the effects of those beloved who have gone before I was ready,
 not that I will ever be ready.
Hope and regret, laughter and tears, bright summer and deep winter.
All of them live inside me but today I pour them
 in careful memorized sweeps and folds
 into closets and drawers.

There is just something
 about folding laundry.

-J

Spring

With all the lightness of spring, inhale.
With sun-streamed skin, remember warmth.
Stretch and glow. Unfold. Reach.
Put away those winter things, child.
Put away covered and curled,
Send wool and weather with melting ice.
Exhale, and fade gale to zephyr.
Put away simply survive; instead, flourish.
Follow the way of root and crown.
Dance, bend, and blossom.

-J

So, here's a rough little thing on the first real days of spring. It's in the high 60s here today, and lovely. I was laying in bed this morning thinking that there's something just infinitely light about spring air, so I figured I'd run with it. In other news, I'm fantastically behind on this, but pretty okay with that. It'll come when it wants.

A Study in Uncertainty

A dance.

Fumbling, my own two--

feet.

Impossibly, irrevocably so far down my throat when I'm around

I can't say what I mean so I say what I--

  don't. 

The last thing I--

  want.

A breath, a pause, I wait too long before I--

Leave.

Do you sigh when I go?

Is the room empty or just less--

  crowded?

-J 

This is for someone I liked far too much, and couldn't read at all. I used the scattered and likely hellish massacre of all things punctuationally proper to hopefully convey exactly the kind of halting uncertainty I felt in this particular somebody's presence. Hopefully it works and doesn't just come across as hipster-pretentious.  

Two Loves

Eyes closed and listening,
The rustle of hay, boards against my back, 
I listen to him breathe.
The weight of words cradled in my lap
As much a comfort as his solid weight
Standing above me.
For these two loves, my world turned.
Both were heavy, but he pulled harder.
Pen and page slipped through my fingers
Like sand in a child's grip.
Now in the chill of his absence I am pulled back
To the word and the wonder of the world
Which I can no longer watch
From between his ears.


-J 


So, this poem for me talks about two of my greatest loves, words and horses. I remember sitting often in my horse's hay pile while he munched around me, book in hand. Reading has always been a priority to me, but for many years, I put aside my inner writer. Why? Simply because while both horses and writing are in my blood, I'm not inherently gifted enough with either that they don't require a hell of a time commitment to excel. I made my choice in my younger years, and I have no regrets, but the strangling of my writing side continued even after my beloved Topaz was gone. I fell immediately from college and onto a horse-related career path, and somewhere along the line, I forgot I was a writer at all. Only last year, during the last rocky days of my marriage when I was trying to be away from home as much as possible, did I begin to rediscover that part of myself; With the rediscovery also came with the vow to reclaim what I'd lost. That transition will likely be part of more poems to come. 

A Little Late to the Game

So, April is National Poetry Month, and I'm a little late getting started-- simply lost track of time as I'm known to do. Regardless, it is something I want to do, so I'll be picking at these as the month goes on. I'll likely end up doing some with prompts and some without, and I'll try not to cheat with Haiku too often.. though it's tempting. I will, however, kick this thing off with a haiku to myself:

It is now April,
And you are already late.
Write poems faster.