dear blog.... some poems for spring

Dear blog,
I miss you. Grad school is totally kicking my ass. I swear I will be back someday soon. In honor of the vernal equinox, I am leaving you with a couple of poems from the days of yore, when I was still able to write poetry. These were written during the childbearing days, so now date back to the mid-nineties. Wow. I have been a grown up for a long time.
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This first piece was written during a wonderful writing workshop, the only I have ever attended. It is a letter to my then very young children, written at a time when I believed that my youthful wild days were over. I have been very pleased to learn they are not.

I am not fat.
I know I may look that way, but I am not.
I am not old.
I may seem that way, but trust me, I am as young as you.
I am not evil.
I may scream and bark and harp and swear, but I am good.
I have feelings and needs like yours, you know.
I once walked topless on a beach in Washington State, and
another time was topless in the Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.
I won't do that again, probably,
but it's OK with me if you do.
I am not a housewife.
I am not anybody's wife, except maybe spring's.
When my years reach the century mark,
which I duly hope they do,
Remember all of this:
I dug deep holes for garden beds (I've done that topless, too).
I climbed to the tops of trees.
I carried many, many pounds of feed bags to cows and
many pounds of babies to birth.
I sang and danced and acted on stage and
had sex outside, even in the rain,
walked up steep mountain paths on dark moonless nights
to get to kegs of beer or
swimming holes
or lovers awaiting my touch, and
I've climbed steep, dark paths of my heart
to get to feelings indescribable.

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This piece, I think, pretty much speaks for itself coming from a woman who conceived three times in five years during her early twenties.

I am fertile as the crescent moon.
My ova hang in clusters like grapes so ripe
they burst through their taut skins.
I conceive like nobody's business,
am forced to will away conception days and days each month.
Hormone levels soar exacerbating yeast,
Yet even in my itchy, juicy, sporishness
I feel like bread dough ever ready to rise.

(for Melanie)