Today we wish April farewell, as well as National Poetry Month. April is always an incredibly special month for me and my family, and this month we have seen a slew of birthdays – my daughter turned 11, and my mother, nephew, sister-in-law, ex-wife and her brother all celebrated birthdays in April. I likewise celebrated my birthday on April 23, which holds the most obvious significance  for me because, well, I was born (thanks Mom!). But it also is a significant date for several of my passions:

• First, poetry – The Bard, William Shakespeare was born on April 1564 and curiously died April 23rd 1616 (Happy 448th Will!).

• Having been a bit of an Anglophile most of my life, April 23rd is also the Feast Day of St. George, patron saint of England who also is apparently is famous for some run-in with a dragon of some sort.

• Finally, April 23rd is traditionally the day that Port Producers make their Vintage declarations for the Port wines. For those of you who have never been cornered by me at a party to explain the process ad nauseum, Port wine is typically only declared “Vintage” about 3 times a decade, so usually three times a decade, my birthday is EXTRA special

Those have all been really wonderful to celebrate, but two other events – book-ending the month on April 6 and today, April 30 are really perhaps the most significant ones that I was contemplating as I made this month’s selection. My parents celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary on April 6, and as I think about the love, commitment, selflessness, and even the ups and down they must have experienced over the last 50 years to reach this milestone, I am simply amazed and honored to watch them now – that same love that got them through all those years is still evident every day in their lives together.

Finally, twenty years ago today, I was heading into Georgetown Hospital in DC to donate bone marrow to someone I didn’t know. Honestly, these twenty years have at times been joyous, humbling, and often times just filled with gratitude to have been able to be a part of something that forever changed my outlook on life, and had such a happy ending.

I hope that you enjoy this month’s selection.

Stewart

The Layers

by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

I took some time over the holidays to clean out my email contacts, and was happy to add some new email address of family and friends to this Poem of the Month list who I thought might appreciate it. To those of you who are new, welcome!

I started this Poem of the Month in January of 2004, inspired by a fellow poetry lover who had done something similar for several years himself. As a former English college professor slogging away in the corporate training world, I found that I missed the creative outlet of reading poetry and sharing it with others who also might appreciate it. The Poem of the Month was born with the selection of “God’s Grandeur” by  Gerard Manley Hopkins in January 2004 as the inaugural Poem of the Month.

This month’s selection really came about in response to seeing an old friend’s Facebook post that her mother had “reached her final destination” and had passed away after a long journey with Alzheimer’s.  I’m sure most of us have experienced some kind of loss in our lives – I remember vividly the passings of my grandfather and grandmother and one of my best friends in high school. Those were all very riveting, painful experiences, but deep down somewhere I knew that these passings – while painful – were part of the natural order of things. I recalled a funeral processing that had passed me once on a New Orleans street and I remember thinking – wow, talk about a fun way to go out…upbeat music, dancing in the streets and smiles on everyone’s face. I re-read that Facebook post and thought –wow, what a perspective to see the passing of a loved one as the natural end to a long journey.

I thought about a poem to honor those who we’ve lost – both recent and in the distant past. Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” immediately popped into my head, and while that is a tremendous poem, it carried a sentiment of defiance and raging against death rather that one that saw that death could be an uplifting experience. I finally found a poem by Abdellatif Laabi that I think fits the bill.

Happy January to you all –

Stewart

The Earth Opens and Welcomes You
by Abdellatif Laâbi

To the memory of Tahar Djaout*
on the day of his funeral

The earth opens
and welcomes you
Why these cries, these tears
these prayers
What have they lost
What are they looking for
those who trouble
your refound peace?

The earth opens
and welcomes you
Now
you will converse without witnesses
O you have things to tell each other
and you’ll have eternity to do so
Yesterday’s words tarnished by the tumult
will one by one engrave themselves on silence

The earth opens
and welcomes you
She alone has desired you
without you making any advances
She has waited for you with Penelopian ruses.
Her patience was but goodness
and it is goodness brings you back to her

The earth opens
and welcomes you
she won’t ask you to account
for your ephemeral loves
daughters of errancy
meat stars conceived in the eyes
accorded fruits from the vast orchard of life
sovereign passions that make sun
in the palm’s hollow
at the tip of the tipsy tongue

The earth opens
and welcomes you
You are naked
She is even more naked than you
And you are both beautiful
in that silent embrace
where the hands know how to hold back
to avoid violence
where the soul’s butterfly
turns away from this semblance of light
to go in search of its source

The earth opens
and welcomes you
Your loved one will find again some day
your legendary smile
and the mourning will be over
Your children will grow up
and will read your poems without shame
your country will heal as if by miracle
when the men exhausted by illusion
will go drink from the fountain of your goodness

O my friend
sleep well
you need it
for you have worked hard
as an honest man
Before leaving
you left your desk clean
well ordered
You turned off the lights
said a nice word to the guardian
And then as you stepped out
you looked at the sky
its near-painful blue
You elegantly smoothed your mustache
telling yourself:
only cowards
consider death to be an end

Sleep well my friend
Sleep the sleep of the just
let us for awhile carry the burden

Créteil, June 4, 1993

As I look back on the year on this last evening of 2011, I’m amazed at the wonderful memories and events that filled the year, and for the people that made each of those events so special.

There are a whirlwind of events that provided color and texture to 2011 for me.

My daughter turned 10 and performed in the musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; and my son turned 14 with us spending some great father-son time fly fishing. For any of us with kids growing older minute by minute right in front of our eyes, I think we begin to recognize more and more how important and precious each of those moments are.

Travel played a prominent role for us in 2011. The whole family traveled to Alabama for Spring Break in April and are visiting again right now for Christmas and New Years. It has been wonderful to spend time with my family and appreciate the time with them and the memories of my home town. Jody and I were able to take a trip to Hawaii, where she was attending a conference, as well as to a Chicago wedding for Jody’s cousin and one in Sacramento for one of Jody’s closest friends. There is nothing like a wedding to bring together family and friends in such happy celebrations. We also visited the San Juan Islands twice this year, once on the annual Todd/Kealy camping trip, and a second visit on a boat with some close friends. I had a business trip to Philadelphia where I was able to have dinner with the person I donated bone marrow to 19 years ago. Finally, I took my 6th Annual Port Wine trip to Portugal, where I tasted my oldest wine – an 1812 Vintage Port.

There were other notable milestones this year worth mentioning. I celebrated my 40th birthday in April – a wine-themed event that featured a house filled with close friends and a collection of 1971 wines including a Cheval Blanc, a Chateau d’Yqyem and a Noval Colheita Port from my birth year. Jody and I joyously celebrated our 2nd Anniversary on July 7th. This was the 25th season of, and my 18th season playing with, the Miracles Co-Ed softball team I play on each summer. It was nice to cap the 2011 softball season with a league championship! Finally, I celebrated the anniversary of fortheloveofport.com, the Port Wine website my friend Roy and I started six years ago.

Quite a lot of events, travel and memories for me in 2011. However, as I read back through the litany of events that marked my days for 2011, every single one is meaningful to me not for where I was or what I did, but for the people who made those moments special and remarkable. To my children, my family in Alabama, my wife, my in-laws, my softball team, my wine friends and all of those friends who have knowing or unknowingly left their mark on my memories for 2011 – I thank you, and wish you a 2012 filled with similar wonderful memories with family and friends.

Happy New Year!
Stewart
stewartltodd@hotmail.com

The Passing of the Year
by Robert W. Service
My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
You stand to bow your last adieu;
A moment, and the prompter’s chime
Will ring the curtain down on you.
Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
You falter as a Sage in pain;
Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
Let us all read, whate’er the cost:
O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
Is it for dear one you have lost?
Is it for fond illusion gone?
For trusted lover proved untrue?
O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan
What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right
So sleek, so prosperously clad!
What see you in that aged wight
That makes your smile so gay and glad?
What opportunity unmissed?
What golden gain, what pride of place?
What splendid hope?  O Optimist!
What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,
What find you in that filmy gaze?
What menace of a tragic doom?
What dark, condemning yesterdays?
What urge to crime, what evil done?
What cold, confronting shape of fear?
O haggard, haunted, hidden One
What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I flit,
The countless eyes that stare and stare;
Some are with approbation lit,
And some are shadowed with despair.
Some show a smile and some a frown;
Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:
Enough!  Oh, ring the curtain down!
Old weary year! it’s time to go.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;
My fire is almost ashes too;
But once again, before you go,
And I prepare to meet the New:
Old Year! a parting word that’s true,
For we’ve been comrades, you and I –
I thank God for each day of you;
There! bless you now!  Old Year, good-bye!

This month’s poem of the month is an excerpt from my hands-down, all-time favorite poem. Part of me is surprised that I have never selected this poem in my seven years of the Poem of the Month. Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth recounts the poet’s overwhelming emotions and nostalgia as he returns to a place which held deep, meaningful memories for him.

As I thought about the kids preparing to head back to school (and those who are already in the throes of those magical first days), I thought about the closing of Summer and what it meant to me when I was a kid. For my brother, sister and me, Summers were all about heading up to our family lake house on Lake Eufaula, which literally straddles the state lines between Alabama and Georgia. Even sitting here thinking about the lake house brings back an overwhelming torrent of jumbled memories of my childhood Summers – bottle rocket fights at ten years old, water skiing behind our primary-blue colored boat, and my late grandfather sitting on our beach in a lawn chair with his signature unlit cigar in his mouth watching his grandchildren splash in the water and soak up all of the carefree goodness that was summer. I think we all likely carry similar stories and memories of childhood Summers.

As the grandparents left us, and the ten year old began to grow up, those seemingly endless Summers morphed as we slipped into other phases of our lives. We imperceptibly drifted into high school, dating, college, marriage, careers, kids of our own. Jobs carried us far away from our homes and our lake house, but we always seemed to find a way to return on holiday visits or Spring Breaks or during the Summer to try and give our children those same wonderful memories that we grew up with at the lake house.

I look at my own kids, Alex and Emma, and all of the activities that they have enjoyed this Summer – YMCA camps, family camping trips, Pirate Camp, gymnastics camp, and for Alex, a two week trip to London and Spain to visit his best friend. I am sure that they are creating their own, indelible Summer memories that maybe one day they will try, in vain, to explain to their own children. Perhaps there is a good reason why masterpieces and snowflakes were never intended to be replicated.

As my own parents have aged, and my nieces and nephews begin to head off to college, we’ve decided that it is time for us to sell the lake house. We take with us all of the treasured memories of our time there, but maybe it’s time to pass it on to a another family with a grandfather who sits on the beach in a lawn chair with an unlit cigar in his mouth.

I hope that you have all enjoyed a Summer packed with memories.

Stewart

William Wordsworth
(1770–1850)

From Tintern Abbey

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

Those of you who know me well know of my unintentional journeyman career as a Training Manager in the 1990’s with a whole string of startups and dot-coms that were acquired or simply settled quietly to the bottom of the corporate ocean. I learned quickly that it was simply the price you sometimes paid to work with really brilliant people trying to solve really complex problems before the funding ran out. It’s true that the first acquisition/layoff was emotionally challenging. The second not so much so. I tucked away my 17 days of employment with one company that failed as a potential plot-line for a future Steven Spielberg film. Or maybe a Stephen Segal martial arts flick. I honestly haven’t decided which one yet.

I also had some great years of career stability. After four years at a “solid” Washington Mutual, I moved on to a new opportunity in advance of the demise of that Northwest institution. But in a nod to Heraclitus’ “Nothing is constant but change,” a recent promotion to Sr. Manager of Sales Training at T-Mobile was followed this month by the news that T-Mobile is going to be acquired by AT&T. I thank all of you who asked if I was ok, or assured me that the deal would never get approved by regulators. The good news is that virtually nothing changes in my work life until the regulators decide on the deal, which is estimated to take 12 months or more. We are still T-Mobile. We still compete against AT&T. We still correct people that the company color is magenta – not “pink.”

All this news made me think back to one of my periods of unemployment, when I would spend hours searching for jobs, writing resumes and filling out applications until I just needed to step away from the computer and get out of the house. I’d regularly drive 45 minutes East to the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River, grab my fly rod and wade out into the cold mountain water. Some days I’d spend a couple of hours there. Some days I could spend twenty minutes, never get as much as a nibble and drive back to Seattle content, relaxed, recharged and refreshed. There seemed to be something in nature that just pulled life back into balance.

It’s that thought that brought to mind this month’s poem by William Wordsworth, which calls into contrast the material world of work and money and the natural world.

William Wordsworth
(1770–1850)

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

As I thought about all of the angst and trepidation that 2010 brought us, I was reminded of one of those great life lessons – that things sometimes don’t look quite so bad in the rear-view mirror. The oil spill was capped, and nature will slowly return to its natural course. The economy, and the jobs that come with it, are slowly, inch by inch, edging back up from the depths. Perhaps in times like these, the best thing we can take from these events are the lessons they teach us about who we are, and what we are capable of becoming.

I kick off 2011, the Poem of the Month’s 7th Year (and hopefully a very lucky one for us all) with Walk Whitman’s “As we O Me! O Life!

Walt Whitman
(1819–1892)

O Me! O Life!

O Me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

It has been a while since the last poem of the month, and I am thrilled to be back on the POM cadence.

Where to begin… From the moment Summer hit, everything seemed to just accelerate. The summer was filled with all manner of excitement for the Todds: a trip to California to visit the Bay Area contingent of Jody’s family; camping for a week with the Kealy Clan on Orcas Islands; a new position for me at T-Mobile that continues to keep me busy and happy; Emma performing as Portia, one of the wicked step-sisters in the Broadway Bound production of “Cinderella”; the disappearance – and surprising reappearance – of our 18 year old cat, Emily; a summer of soccer and fly-fishing for Alex; and my parents coming to visit us from Alabama. An active summer filled with some really wonderful memories.

Our most recent adventure was the trip Jody and I took to Portugal about four weeks ago, and which served as inspiration for this month’s poem.  As most of you know, Since 2006, I have been traveling to Portugal every fall during the Port wine harvest on my friend Roy’s “For The Love of Port” Harvest Tour. However, this year I decided to give his other tour (the For The Love of Port “Fortification” Tour in May) a try, as it combined northern Portugal’s Port wine region with a visit to the island of Madeira – famous for that “other” type Portuguese dessert wine.

A few days before I left on the May trip, I received notice that I’d won a sweepstakes sponsored by the Portuguese National Tourism Board and (of all things) the Sports Illustrated 2010 Swimsuit edition. Apparently Lisbon was one of the cities that SI chose to shoot their 2010 Swimsuit edition. And apparently, at some point I registered for the sweepstakes on the visitportugal.com web site. And apparently, I (who rarely wins anything) won the grand prize of a trip for two to Lisbon, Portugal.

So at the beginning of October, Jody and I set out for Portugal – my second trip of 2010 and Jody’s first trip to Portugal. We spend a few days in Lisbon – wandering it’s amazing neighborhoods and reveling in all of the sights and sounds of such an amazing city. We then took the train up to Porto in Northern Portugal, where we visited with old friends in the Port industry, and spent a wonderful night at the Yeatman, a brand new hotel and spa with views that rival any other hotel in the region. We then took the train East up the Douro River Valley into the heart of Port wine country. We met up with my friend Roy and the Fall Harvest Tour, visiting some historic and legendary wineries – Quinta do Vesuvio, Quinta de Vargellas and Quinta do Crasto. These were properties that I visited on my first trip to Portugal in 2006, and seeing Miguel, Alistair, Gilly, and Dominic was like visiting with old friends after a long absence.

There were so many memorable parts to our trip, but one quote in particular really resonated with me, and it typifies the passion that so many Port winemakers in the Douro share. At a tasting at Ramos-Pinto, Winemaker João Nicolau de Almeida described the process of blending various years of tawny Ports into a perfect blend as “being like a conductor of an orchestra. You have all the instruments at your disposal, but it’s up to the conductor to bring them all together to make beautiful music.”

We drank in our time in Portugal. It was a feast for the senses, and a deep appreciation for the passion, the wines, and the spirit of the people of Portugal.

This month’s poem is “I’m A Keep of Sheep” by Alberto Caeiro (also known as Fernando Pessoa, one of Portugal’s most famous poets, and beloved sons).

Wishing you all the best,

Stewart

Stewart & Fernando Pessoa – Lisbon, Portugal

Fernando Pessoa
1888 – 1935

Alberto Caeiro
(pseudonym for Fernando Pessoa)

I’m A Keeper of Sheep

I’m a keeper of sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts
And my thoughts are all sensations.
I think with my eyes and ears.
And with my hands and feet
And with my nose and mouth.

To think a flower is to see it and smell it
And to eat a fruit is to taste its meaning.

That’s why on a hot day
When I ache from enjoying it so much,
And stretch out on the grass
Closing my warm eyes,
I feel my whole body lying full length in reality,
I know the truth and I’m happy.

As always, previous poems of the month can be found at:
http://www.stewarttodd.com

Photos from our Portugal adventure can be found HERE.

For a full review of the weekend (including tasting notes) see the post here.

I took inspiration from this event, and decided some time ago that for my next significant birthday (my 40th), I’d incorporate a wine tasting of some sort to celebrate wines from the year of my birth – 1971. Having just celebrated my 39th birthday a few days ago, I have officially kicked off my quest to acquire some representative wines from the 1971 vintage to open in April 2011 as I officially leave my “30′s”.

I start with two wines already in my possession, both gifts from my friend Roy on previous birthdays.

1971 Noval Colheita Port

As much as I am a fan of Port, 1971 wasn’t such a great year in Portugal for wines. This is one of the only Ports from 1971 that you can probably find out in the marketplace today. I’ve had the privilege of tasting a bottle of this Colheita Port on one occasion before and it was quite remarkable.

Here is my tasting note from the last time I tried this wine:

“Bottled 1999. Brilliant caramel in color, with aromas of spice and carmarlized sugar. Smooth and coating in the mouth, with great acidity. The alcohol still remains very balanced in this wine, and the wine has notes of dried cherries on the long finish. 94 points.” (Sept. 27, 2008)

Unlike Vintage Ports which are aged in barrels for 18 months and then bottled for additional aging, tawny Ports remain aging in barrels until they are ready to be bottled and sold. This allows gradual evaporation and oxidation that give the wine both it’s golden-brown color and typical nutty or caramel flavors.

A quick primer on Tawny Ports…

Tawny Ports without any age or date indicated on the label are basic tawny Ports, which are blended Ports and have spent at least seven years in barrel.

Tawny Ports with age indications like 10, 20, 30 or 40 years old are blends of wine from multiple years, with an average age of the wine inside at least 10, 20, 30 or 40 years old, respectively.

The third type is the Colheita Port (Colheita is Portuguese for “vintage”), which is a tawny Port blended from grapes from a single vintage year (like 1971).

Miller Williams
(1925 -  )

Of History and Hope

We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—
and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set
on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

April is National Poetry Month, so you get bonus a bonus poem this month (which is particularly warranted since I’ve been remiss in sending out the Poem of the Month on a regular basis lately).

It has been a very busy month for us, and we have had the joy of celebrating, among other things, my parent’s anniversary and 7 family birthdays (including my daughters, and my own today).

I’ve begun reminiscing a lot about what birthdays meant to me as a child, but also thinking about what they mean to me now as my own children grow older. My daughter Emma just turned 9 last week (with my son Alex reaching the “13” milestone a month ago), and it is cliché but so very true for every parent out there that in the blink of an eye, it seems, our small infants have grown up overnight, developed personalities, quirks, and lovely natures that we don’t seem to have much control over any more. We raise them in the best possible way we know how, and then comes the moment when they cross that invisible threshold and cease to be a little “us” and are suddenly their own little “them.” It is a brilliant, humbling moment, and is usually only recognized in hindsight. I can only imagine that it must have been exactly like this for our own parents years and years ago…

Yet that moment also holds hope – hope for their future – a future (as Miller Williams’ poem points out) that we as adults will never be able to fully see. It doesn’t exist yet, but is the expression of everything we hope and dream our children’s world will be one day.

I thought I’d turn to two poems this month to celebrate the dichotomy of birthdays – the helplessness of watching our children grow older, and the possibilities embodied in the year(s) ahead.

Gerald Stein
(1925 -  )

Waving Goodbye

I wanted to know what it was like before we
had voices and before we had bare fingers and before we
had minds to move us through our actions
and tears to help us over our feelings,
so I drove my daughter through the snow to meet her friend
and filled her car with suitcases and hugged her
as an animal would, pressing my forehead against her,
walking in circles, moaning, touching her cheek,
and turned my head after them as an animal would,
watching helplessly as they drove over the ruts,
her smiling face and her small hand just visible
over the giant pillows and coat hangers
as they made their turn into the empty highway.

An annoying – though thankfully non-destructive – virus decided that my computer would make a good temporary host, delaying the March Poem of the Month.

The confluence of the virus with Spring Break didn’t speed up the healing, but thankfully the patient has now made a full recovery. With the remnants of Spring Break still lingering in the air for many of us, I thought it was an appropriate time for a poem about travel…and birds.

Happy Spring everyone!

Stewart

Timothy Steele
(1948 -   )

In the Memphis Airport

Above the concourse, from a beam,
A little warbler pours forth song.
Beneath her, hurried humans stream:
Some draw wheeled suitcases along
Or from a beeping belt or purse
Apply a cell phone to an ear;
Some pause at banks of monitors
Where times and gates for flights appear.

Although by nature flight-endowed,
She seems too gentle to reproach
These souls who soon will climb through cloud
In first class, business class, and coach.
She may feel that it’s her mistake
She’s here, but someone ought to bring
A net to catch and help her make
Her own connections north to spring.

She cheeps and trills on, swift and sweet,
Though no one outside hears her strains.
There, telescopic tunnels greet
The cheeks of their arriving planes;
A ground crew welcomes and assists
Luggage that skycaps, treating bags
Like careful ornithologists,
Banded with destination tags.