Airplane Poetry

1. words come more easily 

while traveling 

after the intensity 

of family - a few meals 

together, 40th birthday 

party, and visits with the 

last parent who is busy 

dying 

and walking with childhood 

friends to our old 

neighborhood park in 

cold sunlight with 

good dog company

 

all their ordinary lives 

that keep happening 

while I’m gone 

intersect with mine 

when I return and for 

a few shining hours 

we become - together - 

extraordinary

2. How do we forgive our Mothers?*

Maybe with a song 

that recalls their warmth

Do we forgive our Mothers for being overwhelmed too often or forever

when they told us we were “too much”?

Maybe for embarrassing us with unstylish clothes 

when they took us to soccer practice

or making us angry and abandoned 

because they never took us anywhere at all.

Do we forgive our Mothers for working outside the home,

Or not working outside the home?

For standing up to or not standing up to our Fathers?

And shall we forgive them for their lack of empathy or patience?

Shall we forgive them for their cold remove 

or for hot, controlling, sticky fingers in our lives 

like when they pulled tangles from our hair?

Do we forgive our Mothers 

in time, before they stop 

knowing us, when they stop speaking 

or only answer with one or two words?

If we do not forgive our Mothers

How do we forgive ourselves?

*with credit for cadence and form, to How Do We Forgive Our Fathers? by Dick Lourie and featured in the wonderful movie “Smoke Signals”

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it's accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.” ~ Oprah Winfrey