It’s time to shop for seeds to start
In little fuzzy squares
Time to sift through sock drawers
Sort those lone socks into pairs
Time to check your smoke alarms
And see if they’re expired
Time to sit down on the couch
And let yourself be tired
Time to work and rest and write
And map out who you’ll be
Choose how you will live your life
In twenty-twenty-three
She watches and remembers
All that she can see
Should I teach her of
The world as it is
Or the world
As I wish it to be?
I gave myself
Permission to write
Twenty minutes
Morning or night
Instead of resolutions this year
What permission do you need to hear?
Raffi says that “Everything Grows”
And I would say that Raffi knows
But things should not grow in all spaces
Our fruit drawer
Is one of those places
At ten pm, she has an urge
To scrub the bathroom sink
Then she wants to eat an apple
And she wants some milk to drink
Then she has to use the potty
But through her plans I see
This kid’s never been a mama
But this mama once was three
Mother Earth, with joy we greet
With this touch of baby feet
She lumbers along like a tiny bear
A tiny bear with short red hair
Despite her little ringlet curls
She roars like the queen of the forest world
Portlandia is mighty
As she looks down from above
And then there’s Lady Liberty
Whose silhouette we love
Artists use The Woman
To show us an ideal
Rather than real women
Who might think
And act and feel
Gentlemen on horseback
I have seen an awful lot
But real women from our history?
It seem they were forgot
There is some work I like
By an economist at Brown
Who analyses data
And clearly breaks things down
In pandemics or
In parenting, in the first few years
It helps to have the data
When out conquering your fears
Sarah flings her spoon
And sweet potatoes on the floor
But I have a younger brother
And I’ve seen this game before
My husband washes off the spoon
Gives it back, and then
I watch in mock surprise
As that spoon hits the floor again
Emily Adkins Bostian 