I wrote this for Walter’s first birthday. I never got around to getting it nicely printed and framed, but I shared it with his dad. I’ll share it with you, today. It’s not finished, so I’d love feedback from any other poetry geeks. It’s been a long time since I wrote poetry. But here you are:
Make Way
Never–until I became
a mother–did I imagine
a poem about ducklings.
I collect images,
phrases while he sleeps, still
needs me next to him. (Why?) Ducks:
fuzz yellow squawk
My one-day-soon to
talk, walk,
yellow-haired boy, a year
ago arrived with nowhere
but my arms to be.
We laughed at combs for
you. The fuzz laughs, grows
out, up, forward,
never down,
short in back, flat only
when sleep works
you hard, the sweat beads
under, darkens, holds
such fine hair, the comb
still does nothing
without water.
“It is not,” I told
your dad “a song
about dead ducks,
they grow up, that’s why.”
But Mama Duck
haunts me, calling her
babies, ten, five,
until not one–my one, only:
squawk, walk, over
the hills and far away.
My poetry will
“make way for ducklings”
when McCloskey and you
ask, and songs, noise-making
toys, I swore–Never!–
to see flapping
hands, arms, joy
bursting around
me in waves.
Your squawks will make
way for words; your crawling
with flapping, loud hands
on the floor, fast
knees, will turn until you
run (not fast, if genes
predict), until you need
shoes for those fat,
splayed, long, delicious feet.

Very sweet and thanks for the image credit! xx
I just read about someone being sued for posting an image, even though she did credit the photographer, so it’s really nice of you to leave this note! Lovely timing. <3