Friday, April 26, 2013

Poems for Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop — Week 4: Trust

Weekly Parenting Poetry WorkshopWe're sharing our poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:

Week 4:

Trust


This week — our next to last! — we're considering the move into our confidence and rhythm as parents even as we navigate the uncertain waters of discipline, spirituality, and seeking answers to big questions.

If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog, link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!

I'll be posting the final week's theme and prompts on Monday. You can post this week's poems at any time during the challenge — the linky will remain open. To be eligible for a prize, link up or paste your poem(s) before Monday.

For full details on the workshop and prizes and to grab a badge or to catch up with us (join anytime!), see the intro post, Week 4's prompts, and Week 3's poems.



Here are my poems for the week.


dad carrying boy through woods

April 22: Partners: Write a love (or anti-love) poem to your co-parent, or the one you're missing.

You as father

Hard to write a love poem to someone
so ordinarily extraordinary.
I hesitate to laud your parenting prowess,
because it seems you're what a father should be:
elbow-deep in diapers, snuggling to sleep,
answering scads of questions, ferrying a car of kids.
So that it's not you who's better; it's maybe others who lack.
I've made you the standard,
a measure for dads that resets the bar,
a norm that vaults far beyond
into magnificence.


April 24: Faith: How does the spiritual intersect your parenting?

and

April 26: Why: What big questions from your children have you been terrified and privileged to answer?

Faith

You ask what death is, and what is beyond,
and how do I answer when my answers have slipped from my hands?
I who used to know every response by heart
am now failing your questions like a pop quiz.
I stutter and stammer and suggest asking your father,
because — I wish I knew, love.
I wish I knew there was some beautiful beyond
we reach after death.
I wish I believed that still.
I wish I found the logic in telling you our cat and my grandparents
wait for us in a pristine idyll of peace
and that we will stay together always,
cosleeping into eternity in our family bed,
only awake.



Link up your posts or paste your poems in the comments!

Please comment on the participant directly above you and one other participant of your choice. Feel free to share each other's poems on Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, or Twitter (#parentingpoetry) — everyone can use a little poetry!

I'm asking for your email address in the linky so I can email to let you know when the prompts and linkies are live, and so I can notify you if you're a winner. If you aren't linking up, you can leave your email address in the comments.



1 comments:

Tree Peters said...

what a sweet poem to your husband. I love "ordinarily extraordinary"... love that you reset the bar. I love the story it tells.

also love "pristine idyll of peace". Damn girl, that's poetry!!
seriously, I feel that poem deeply. "I wish I knew, love"... so nicely weighted.

And I have to thank you again. I am enjoying this so much. Always amazed that I pull it off for another week. Especially getting all 7 in. xo

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