This month I attended a really spectacular workshop on teaching poetry.  Incredibly valuable and really inspiring actually.

As attendees and students, we were walked through how we could teach our students poetry and we practiced all the games/ideas/talking points to help lead the kids to positive and meaningful experiences with poetry.  (I hope to take this new knowledge and do something good with it this year.)

In one exercise we ended up writing our own poem based on a famous poem by one of two poets.  I chose Carl Sandburg, because he’s my guy you know.

I was influenced by the birthday of London – thirteen.  Such a significant number.

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Rocky Mount, Virginia
(after Carl Sandburg’s “New Hampshire, Again”)

I remember the waiting.
Oppressive July heat.
I remember long early morning walks,
long late afternoon walks,
long dusky evening walks.
Willing my body to shift its weight and
begin the process.

I remember fear and dread
weighing heavier than
hope and anticipation.
Heavier even than my bulky pregnant body.

I remember the quick breaths
and the quicker phone calls.
The panic and the unknown.

I remember my mother’s presence,
hovering and invasive.
For once more trouble than comfort.

I remember numbness and exhaustion.
A surprised voice, my mom’s . . .
“Her ears!  They look perfectly normal!  Not big at all!”

I have one remember, three, ten and now
thirteen remembers.
A tower of birth candle-lit remembers.

Post midnight.
Solitary bundle,
small and delicate in my clumsy arms.

A song.
Sung by a voice
that must have been my own.

“Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to me.”

We celebrated together in a dimly lit hospital room
in a forgotten town in Virginia.

Me — thirty years alive.
Her — one day alive.

A mother.
A daughter.
Birthdays back to back.

I remember satisfaction
and wonder.
Trepidation
and astonishment.

Thirteen remembers.

All birthday cake and diapers and red tricycles and double digits.

Remembers written and draped across
my face
and
hers.

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