I most easily express my love languages through words of affirmation (sometimes in the form of verse) and quality time. So here goes a poem for my mom on her 69th year!! Sometimes the only way I can think about my Mom is as a mom…but today, on her birthday, I would like to think about all the other ways she comes to life for people and the planet. Becky is a Ford (that’s her maiden name). She grew up in a 300-person town in rural Ohio. She is the product of 4H and working class parents who worked at a Garage every day save Sunday. Her childhood memories are of running around town and her Grandmother’s farm. Her experiential education informs her history. Her hands tell the story of where she has been and where she will go.
Her Identity lives in her hands*
Her skirt hem draped comfortably just below her knees,
like a worn tablecloth on a well-built wooden table,
leg hair glistening in the sun, broad bare feet, one on the gas pedal
the other on the brake.
She always drove like she was driving stick.
Her hands encircled the wheel steadily and her movements
were brusk and assertive. Her commentary a steady stream of information that
keeps you company–never silence–always emotion and presence.
An expressive piano that is only tuned once every blue moon.
“My hands look like old-lady hands.” She tightened the lid of the honey
jar she was bottling– comb stashed inside like a shimmering treasure.
She remarked, without acknowledging the history those hands had been
through with the countless quilts, rugs, knitting needles,
bee hives, canning jars, sourdough,
native plantings, garden rows, and compost piles.
Everything now she knew before and still,
Her hands continue to shape the identity she holds.
*I used Naomi Shihab Nye’s Poem: "My Memories Live in my Mother’s Phone" as a mentor poem for mine because I think her style of poetry fits my mother well and to pay tribute to Nye's Palestinian roots and the conflict that folks are enduring there that is terrifying and incomprehensible.
poems
Poetry Workshop at Mounds State Park (Indiana)
A couple of weekends ago I had the fortunate opportunity to gather with former Poet Laureate, Shari Wagner and a handful of enthusiastic poets and nature lovers to learn about the ecosystem of Mounds State Park, a small preserved piece of Indiana and indigenous history I had never explored before. After walking and learning about the park with a naturalist we proceeded to do some poetry writing and work-shopping. Products of this time together are below: a collaborative poem with the 6 participants as well as my own interpretation of the fen in verse.
Mounds State Park is home to one of the four protected fens in Indiana. Fens are a type of wetland and are characterized by alkaline water or the most neutral on the pH scale and so have a very particular type of plant species (like grasses and sedges) and wildlife (we learned specifically about the star-nosed mole that senses everything through it’s highly sensitive 22-filamented nose and the grey petaltail dragonfly, a creature that flew among the dinosaurs(!) both endemic to this habitat.
This experience is a testament of learning about the habitat that surrounds us and our interaction with it! This summer my parents and I watched a Heartland short about wetlands and learned that Indiana was largely wetland before farming practices and draining in general interrupted these ecosystems. Now, more than 90% of wetlands of Indiana have been lost. Learning about these sometimes endangered and sensitive habitats and how humans play a role is so important to our development as a species and how we can play a more harmonious role with nature.
In the fen we saw an eagle sweeping the sky with the arc of an oar and heard water’s clear, cold gurgle, noted the reflection of November trees. We touched the vertical brick of burr oak bark and the velvet of delicate fern moss. Occasional shrieks of blue jays sliced through the silence. We overheard a nuthatch, its chuckle the distant flicking of a soft card on bicycle spokes. Collaborative Poem by the 11/14/20 workshop, “Exploring the Ecosystem at Mounds SP”
Exploring the fen We descend the steps of the carefully erected wooden stairs— scalloped stories fan out beneath us—tales and layers mostly buried. We step down each story of wetland, perfectly neutral water trickles steadily beside us, peat-moss shelters, clinging invisibly to the ground, paws of a cat after landing. Once a glacier swept this land. Then came the Hopewell and Adina—carefully constructing a gathering place. An amusement park attracted excited tourists. A developer’s proposition fantasized a residential paradise atop the fen — a river bank abode. We walk to the banks of the river, set on napping tree trunks and imagine the freshwater mussels laying among the stones, we will them there— the water quality depends on them. We touch a pheasant back mushroom, now slightly hardened, fresh bread cubes becoming croutons. I picture a web of mycelium meters beneath our feet breaking down the dead, building up the new. The star-nosed mole, burrows there too—sensing it’s prey, eating quickly, quartering a second while slurping up a worm. We keep walking. Skinny, yet strong the muscle tree stands flexing it's clenched fist.
April in verse
April is National Poetry Month. I’d like to share with you a few haikus and a free-verse poem (en español) that I have written inspired by spring, love, and connection in the midst of a time of darkness, hate, and misunderstanding.
Haikus
The crocus quivers With weighty winds, yet shoots forth A purple beauty
Little bright creatures Carry on their usual ways Midst fear we try too
...
Shades of green emerge Out of the dark of winter We too can mirror this
...
The Earth moves slowly healing itself anew. Joy is in the details.
Love—a red robin Every chirp beckoning Spring And bright days ahead.
...
Hugging us tightly Spring spoils us by giving Everything in bloom
...
Hard times bring us close Like small creatures weathering Spring rain and showers. ...
El amor es lo que queda
El amor es lo que queda cuando los árboles
descansan, pelados y desnudos.
Cuando el frío y el viento bate las ramas con
fervor y no deja siquiera una hoja como secuela.
Cuando al fin y al cabo nos damos cuenta
que todos somos seres queridos
tratando de hacer lo mejor que podemos.
Todos tenemos corazones emotivos
queriendo amar con todo lo que tenemos.
Construyendo puentes duraderos entre emociones
pasajeros, es una obra de arte y amor lo que
siempre intentaremos. Reajustando maderas y tornillos
para afrentar cada tormenta eternamente preparados.
Pero nuestros preparativos no resisten a
la naturaleza y el amor como transfondo.
Solo se puede abrir nuestros sentidos para
sentir el eterno momento de lo que nos rodea. 
¿está la raquelita? 