The Gift

Sand shifts

this brittle, black driftwood mood

out to the inhaling sea

with a booming, insulting sneer,

carrying footprints of poems

I’ve neglected to write in the sting-crash of time.

But I won’t hear,

captivated watching you,

my favorite sanderlings,

prying open shells, beaks gleaming,

etching me poems,

wing tips in the sand.

© 2017 Jennifer Wagner

for my sons

dVerse:  Poetics “Gift” and OpenLinkNight

Love & Dreams (My Mother's Day Poem, 2016)

I struggle still

to speak each of their languages.

You’d think I’d have it

down by now

for each work in progress,

each work of art--

the one who loves the center,

works with his hands, dreams and speaks in fantasy;

the one who is soft-spoken,

athletic, dependable;

the one who is outside the box,

surprising, hilarious;

the one who is competitive, but tender,

and memorizes more than I’ve ever remembered.

All of them, in the way sons

have a heart for their mothers,

have given me more,

times four, to love

and to dream of

than what I could have alone.

© 2016 Jennifer Wagner

“C’mon, guys, it’s the least we can do--we walked out of her stomach and stepped on her dreams.”  --words of my eldest son to his brothers after I asked them to pose for a photo they were less than thrilled to pose for.  I laughed so hard.

Season of Innocence/sense(s)

Today smells like new lilacs

and the warm redbrick

of the library baking slightly

in the springtime glow.

Today looks like my smiling-eyed son

toting a stack of books,

the pep and hop

of his bright, young step next to mine.

Today sounds like the train,

always going somewhere, like we are,

even when standing still.

Today feels like that moment

I recognize

I’ll have only once

--and tastes

like goodnight

on the lips

of a season

better than summer,

innocent and golden.

© 2016 Jennifer Wagner

image source