I’m hosting a writing contest.
I used to love Scribbit’s writing contests
before Michelle went a-wall.
I even got an honorable mention once.
It was one of my most proud moments.
Poetry + Writing
An Empty Well
I throw quarters in
but there is no splash.
I make my wish
as it clunks at the bottom.
I go elsewhere for water and wishes
because the well is empty.
I start making my wishes
for the well to fill
and keep dropping dimes.
I know someday the well
may be full of money
but then I will buy water
and make my greatest wish true.
Wells were made for wishes and water.
Meet Me At Mid-Day My Dear.
Feel free to eavesdrop or ignore.
Funny sidenote:
LG does not have a poetic bone in his body.
I was just translating this poem for him.
He says, “where our bodies can entwine, what does that mean?”
Then I showed him entwined fingers
while asking him if I needed to pull out a dictionary.
He says, “Our bodies entwine every night.”
I said, I know.
Don’t you get it?
All this whole poem is saying
is
Come home at lunch time and have sex with me.
Now, after barely browsing the poem the first time
all the sudden he is interested and even excited about it.
Men!
I work on this poem for an hour
and all he even hears is the last three words of my explanation of it.
sex with me.
He is now trying to fight me off the computer so he
can read the poem with an all new perspective.
Hole in One
I swung the club
and off it sailed.
So far away,
it was hard to eye.
But it only took you
for me to see
that my shot
was off by a mile.
In the woods,
we went and searched,
and laughed
until we cried.
We suck,
we lamented.
My game was so bad.
Irrelevant.
Our par didn’t matter
we were intoxicated
just you and me
experiencing a first.
We shot ball after ball
and finally got one
over the river
instead of in it.
Years ago,
we were on that course
in St George
and I will never forget.
Your smile
and your laugh
and your patience
and your love.
When reflecting
I know for certain
I got the most important
hole in one.
I love you LeGrand. Happy Birthday.
I can’t wait to have many many more firsts with you.
We grow
With you, I grow.
Side by side.
You’re just a sap.
I am too.
Different kinds.
You flourish in the sun and rain.
And I watch.
You dance.
You cry.
You smile.
You laugh.
I watch.
I laugh.
I smile.
I cry.
I dance.
And I flourish.
Without knowing it.
Because I am always watching you.
You are my pride and joy.
Sprouted from my seed.
My best buddy.
Smart.
You are strong.
Straight.
Courageous.
You are my joy.
And my light.
I grew
while watching you grow.
But your growth is
so much greater
than mine.
And that makes me feel
like a sap.
All over again.
Both kinds.
You are my joy.
I keep watching.
And waiting.
Until someday
you will have a sapling of your own.
And then my growth
will become even greater.
Because it will
not just be mine.
But yours.
And your sap’s.
And we will all grow together.
Until we have a forest.
And our joy
will be one.
You and me,
we will be done growing.
But our saplings
we will watch.
Together.
And we will feel
so small.
As small as a seed.
But as small
as we feel,
we will know that
we have great power.
Power as huge as a forest.
Because there will be
so many saplings.
And we will watch.
And smile.
And laugh.
And dance.
And cry.
And grow.
Together.
Forever.
I love you Abigail. My darling darling young woman. You are such a joy to me. And I am so proud to be your mom and your friend.
For the Moms
I will never forget the day that I left the local library bawling. That morning I had just received some shocking and awful news. I decided to take the kids to the library to get my mind off of things. Of course, my two children had other ideas. My baby was a monster that day. They say that our small children respond to our emotions, and I think she was responding perfectly. A man came across the library and pretty much told me I was an awful mother. It was the straw that broke the momma’s back. I gathered the monster, her sister, and tried my best to keep it together until I got outside. I broke halfway to the door.
Another mother had seen the whole thing go down. She ran out to greet me at my car. I had locked the kids in their seats and sat at my steering wheel bawling uncontrollably. I couldn’t even muster the strength to drive back home and even if I could, I couldn’t see well enough to drive. She had the audacity to knock on my window. I sheepishly rolled my window down, and explained that I was having an awful day. She asked me if she could pray for me, and I said, “Oh, that is so sweet, please do.” As a Mormon, I thought that meant she would go back to her car, bow her head and say a silent prayer, but as a relatively new Southerner, I had a lesson comin’ to me. She stood in place and started pleading with the Lord on my behalf. I don’t remember most of what she said except for one line, “Jesus, this woman is obviously having a really hard time, and she has children to take care of, please comfort her so she can do whatever it is that she needs to.”
Do you know that it is six years later and I am still dealing with this major trial in my life. And often, very often I hear the words to that prayer and feel at peace. I wish I could somehow tell that mother, wherever she is, that she has been an angel in my life. But really, aren’t all mothers angels? I think God gets so much of his work done through women with mother hearts. How grateful I am to be one who can succor and to also be one who is succored.
Who You Are
Another poem (kind of) for LG.
Don’t expect any of you to make it all the way through.
And LG may hope that you don’t, as it gives away all his secrets.
Heck, LG may not even make it through this one.
It’s a doozie.
Who you are
To me.
You are choice between diet mountain dew or A&W rootbeer.
And an empty bag of BBQ chips.
You are love that is better than ice-cream.
You are sunrise, sunrise,
I can see it in your eyes.
You are kisses all around.
You are always kind.
But never kind enough to yourself.
You are sometimes down.
And sometimes crazy.
But I am the only one that knows that.
You are the guy
with great teeth
and you don’t even have to floss.
You are the man
who I love by my side
in the bed,
on the trail,
and
at the movies.
You are amazing calves
that can still dunk
any day.
And a bad ankle
that keeps you
grounded.
You are a little boy
I want to hug.
You are let it be
and sunshine on my shoulders.
You are fall leaves,
and rain on the metal eave,
open windows
to let in the sound.
You are the one
who holds me
in a Southern Storm
or watches in awe
the Western lightening
scrawl across the sky.
You are a child of God
who deserves unconditional love.
You are a mighty man
who holds the priesthood of God
and can move mountains.
You are the equivalent of a PHD,
even though you say you aren’t
and that you think PHD’s are stupid.
and Mormon Tabernacle choir.
And listening to you
listen to music
is like a spiritual experience.
Listening to you talk to your kids
about music
is like heaven to my soul.
And I haven’t even got started
about how sexy it is
when you play the piano
or quote Robert Frost.
You are dirty blonde,
and a toehead,
and mostly bald.
Your stubble up top
makes my hands tremble.
You are a fast typer
and a fast thinker
and fast with your
jokes.
And that’s about all you do fast.
Unless we count when you fidget.
You are a slow kisser.
A slow driver
and a slow reader,
but not to me.
To me,
you read the fastest.
You have perfect timing.
And against all odds
you have learned to be a good gift giver
which means everything.
You are a blinker
and a concentrator
and either do
one or the other.
And I love it when
you let others
see the part of you
that is fun and carefree.
You are the disliker
but instead a woman
only cook for you
on your birthday
or on Father’s Day
or when we have company.
and the hole in the wall spot.
Or that salad
that your age
has forced upon you.
You are always anxious
about change
and you don’t like uncertainty.
You are empathetic
and loving
and overly accommodating
to everyone but yourself.
You are a guy
who can lose 50 pounds
in two months
when you put your mind to it.
You are the kid
who thinks that there
is always something
better on the other side.
Your weakness does not define you
as neither does your strength.
What defines you
is you.
And I want you to know
that more than anything
this me
wants that you
to see you
as I see you.
You are self conscience
and self deprecating
and I want you to see
who you are
to me
and
who you are to Him
so you can
see who you really are.
Because who you are
is so much better
than who you know.
Tennessee Bridge
I’m already crying and I haven’t even started writing yet. I’m a mess.
In 2003, LG and I, with our three little daughters crossed over this bridge for the first time as a family. The girls were so young: 4,2, and newborn. We had come across the country for law-school and Grandma Gold’s empty house was a perfect place for us to crash while we house hunted (an hour and a half away) in Knoxville. It was two doors down from my in-laws, which is about a mile beyond this bridge. We didn’t know it at the time, but we started a tradition. It had been a long trip, where we learned all sorts of car sanity games. We challenged Abigail to a Tennessee Bridge off. She must suck in all the air support she could and holler “Tennessee Bridge” as we drove over. She should not stop hollering until we safely reached the side closer to grammy’s house.
I choose you
I choose you.
It was red.
It was red. It was perfect. And the story goes something like this:
The anticipation of Mother’s Day was slowly putting my husband over the edge. How the man ever buys a satisfactory gift for me with all that intense pressure, I will never know.
On Saturday morning I chuckled inside as he begrudgingly announced that he had some business to tend to and would be home shortly. As he dragged himself out the door, I hollered out, for the twentieth time that week, my short list of things that he could buy for me. I try to help him out like that. That’s what mothers are supposed to do and I wouldn’t want to shirk my responsibility so close to the holiday, would I?
Less than ten minutes later, he walked in with a good size box under arm. It was all wrapped up. What in the world? He confessed; he had gone to work to pick up the gift that he had really purchased several weeks back. He had been acting worried for two weeks just to increase the surprise.
I gasped for air. Had he really bought me a gift two weeks in advance? I must be getting more special by the minute. Or was I just better looking when I was 8 months pregnant with number three? He never buys Christmas gifts until Christmas Eve; he learned quickly to put off the torture as long as possible. Wow. I couldn’t have been more speechless if I had won the Grammy for mothering.
I was in a trance. I sat and I unwrapped. I felt like the luckiest mother alive. And let’s keep this between me and you, I was taking my time because I was a bit worried about what he may have picked out all on his own. Ideas were flowing freely into my skeptical brain. What if it was horrid? How would I play it off? The worry lasted for just a second. The picture on the box stole away all of my spousal anxiety and mistrust.
My jaw dropped. If the box was correct, he had purchased my coveted Kitchen Aid mixer. I can’t even tell you how many times it was on the long list of gifts to buy! It was the gift at the bottom for another day when we had more funding. It was a gift of such magnitude that it was never on the list that I typically yelled to him while he stomped out the door. How could he have remembered?
When I started to tear up, it was a little more emotion than he was ready for. He quickly explained, “I hope this gift lasts you for the next three years because you probably won’t be getting anything else for a while.” We would all become law school orphans soon enough.
The gift couldn’t have been any more phenomenal. Except maybe if it was a new couch. That is still on the long list. I tore into the box; I couldn’t wait to make some homemade rolls; I would finally be free of the torturous duty of kneading. I made a vow, the man would never hear me complain again.
But, wait! What color is that? It’s not the same as the picture on the box? It’s not the plain old white model. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. My eyes did not deceive me. My man had given me the moon and the stars just as promised in those old fairytales. My new mixer was a mixer with a purpose; it made a statement as grand as mine.
My new mixer was the color of my personality. My new mixer was my favorite color that I had never dared to declare. It was red. It was perfect. It was the color that I always described like this, “I don’t have a favorite color. I love them all. How could anyone declare a favorite color? All of the colors are beautiful in their own way. Oh, if I had to choose one? Well, I really do love the color red. It would be at the top of my list.”
I am sure that LG has given me great Mother’s Day gifts over the last ten years, but I can’t for the life of me, think of one. How could he top perfection? And not because it was from the long list, but because it was red. He had chosen my favorite color. And it was beautiful. And if his 8 month pregnant wife wasn’t beautiful, you could have never convinced her of it. Her husband had reached perfection in the gift giving department. And he did it just for her.
And I am now proud to exclaim my favorite color. When people ask, “What’s your favorite color?” I proudly reply. “It’s red. My husband chose it for me. It was a mixer. It was red. It was perfect.”
Now honey, don’t be getting any crazy ideas. A red couch would simply not do the trick for my upcoming birthday. Please keep the couch at the bottom of the long list and don’t EVER try to pick me out a couch, o.k.? Really, I want a say in the couch department. I am serious.
Oh, and I love you. And, I love red. And, I love my red mixer. But, I won’t love a red couch. Got that?
I will be submitting this to Scribbit’s September Write Away Contest. Just for fun. And as my way of saying thanks for the topic.










