To Find Words When the Words Are Hard to Find

My mom spent most of her birthday hanging out with the grandkids and the two new kittens. Thinking about our generations together made me think of some of the poems that give words to that kind of joy and the odd feeling that ripples through your vision as you get older (sometimes a sadness? a sense of loss? Maybe it’s not “odd” at all, just an acknowledgement of time moving on–like I said, I don’t mean this in a depressing sense, I just haven’t found words to evoke the richer sense of it). I’ve tried to give words to that for a long time and certain images find their way out, but I’ve never done it well enough over the course of a whole piece.

I like what Cathy Song does with her poem “Waterwings.”

Happy Birthday, Mom!