Watering
Watering
I’m not crying— or not much. It’s just this spill of milkweed, pouring like a purple wave that tilts my green eyes to watering.
Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash
The Prompt
Let’s talk about crying, friends! I am a crier. I choke back tears while watching animated films with my children or cheering from the sidelines of my son’s cross country races. I read the news, and I cry. I get good news, and I cry. I read my own poems, and I cry 😂. I usually feel happy more often than I feel sad, so my tears are often joyful ones, but any emotion, turned up in intensity, twists the faucet to on.
When’s the last time you cried? When’s the last time you wanted to cry but couldn’t or didn’t? When’s the last time you saw someone else cry? What was happening—both inside of you and outside?
Have you held a crying baby (and how many million times)? Have you set a crying baby down and tried, desperately, to flee?
Have you ever laughed until you cried? Cried until you laughed? Cried and felt ashamed? Cried and felt relief? Have you cried and felt too exposed? Cried and felt just the right amount of seen?
Notice the memories and sensations conjured by these questions. Notice if multiple stories or experiences arise that connect with one another or weave together in interesting ways. Let a poem crystalize around your experiences with tears. I look forward to reading whatever you share! Truly, your poems and comments are some of the brightest spots in my life.
This one flowed from the bicycle ride this evening, a clear, cool summer wind by my side.
No Holding Back
^
Once the walls were as high
as the Hoover Dam,
impenetrable as a rhododendron thicket,
a fortress of security
where no light ever shined.
^
Generations of stoicism,
genetic disposition,
distorted gender roles
mountains of shame
and dysfunctional families,
kept the tears locked inside.
Even then the sadness seeped around the edges,
found its way into child’s play,
lost laughter, broken smiles,
restless nights and raucous relationships
the script handed down from heats frozen long ago.
Through it all there were no tears.
^
When the dam broke,
And I learned how to cry
tears flowing like storm filled river,
liberating, life giving,
love breathing baptism of hope,
I ran outside in the midnight moon,
and shouted “I am free.”
I have so much material for crying poems, lol! This one is about my young friend Denali, who is a beautiful singer and has made me tear up a few times this past week in a couple gigs of hers that I've attended. Both times, she started with a kind of low-key Blackbird and then moved into a dazzling rendition of Fields of Gold. Also, she is fledging and moving over the mountains, so more tears for that.
.
Baby blackbird
tests her range,
conscious of the flock
and curling around
the safety of
low notes,
.
until August
turns around and
in that slip,
the barley is gold
and the baby
is gone.