Poetry Friday -- A Tribute to the Women Who Made Me Who I Am

The women who made me who I am
     gave each other home perms
     led Cub Scout dens and Brownie Scout troops
     grew asparagus for the challenge of it
     ran the swimming pool and coached the swim team.

The women who made me who I am
     opened businesses
     drove tractors
     canned pickles
     read voraciously.

The women who made me who I am
     put meals on the table
     put kids to bed
     put petunias in the planter
     put family first.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019


Happy International Women's Day! This poem's for you, Harriet, Verta, Rae, Phyllis, Rita, Vonnie, Evelyn, Adrienne, Joy, Bonnie, Rose Mae, Faye, and all the others whose names have left my memory, but whose mark remains.

Catherine has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Reading to the Core.

Next week, Heidi (my juicy little universe) is inviting us to join her in sharing Climate Change poems for the worldwide School Strike for Climate.

Poetry Friday -- Pomegranates

This is one of my favorite #haikuforhealing for the week, and I thought it would make a perfect visual for our Tumblr Roundup Host, Lisa at Steps and Staircases. Don't be afraid to submit your link. It's really easy! Click on "SUBMIT" at the top of the post and you'll get what looks like a comment form. Give it a title, put in your name and email. Drop your link in the box. It's moderated, so Lisa will harvest out your link and add you to the roundup. You can't mess up! Go for it!


The Roundup Schedule for January - June 2018 is nearly complete. Would you like to snag THE LAST slot? May 18 is still available!!

Poetry Friday -- Mother by Ted Kooser

Mother
by Ted Kooser

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,

for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

Tara has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at A Teaching Life.