My children are the bright flowers.
I admire them: I’m dirt.
They know nothing of what it’s like
to be laced with minerals
but they need all the salts I’ve got.
They look up
to sun and rain.
I look up to them,
and also rain.
I keep them colorful, bless them
with my million mouths each night.
I love to hold them this way—
nobody else
can recall their time as seeds,
their brown waiting.
They ask over and over
for stories about themselves,
every grasping root
within my grasp, for now.
They have their lovely sway,
I have this transubstantiation.
I never imagined this
unfurling of desire,
never realized the zeal
with which I’d spread myself so thin,
so wide, so deep.
Cecelia Hagen is the author of Entering, Bus Stop Poems and Art, and the chapbooks Among Others and Fringe Living. Her poems have appeared in Guesthouse, On the Seawall, Blood Orange Review, Rolling Stone, Zyzzyva, Willow Springs, Zócalo Public Square, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, and several other journals and anthologies. They have also been permanently installed as public art along the EmX bus line.
Cecelia grew up in Norfolk, Virginia. She attended Connecticut College, graduating with a degree in English and a minor in modern dance. After moving to the Pacific Northwest, she earned her MFA in poetry at the University of Oregon, where she also studied philosophy, landscape architecture, and every dance class that was offered.
Poetry
Comments
1 comments have been posted.
I truly enjoyed this poem because I am a mother and I love flowers! My favorite line is at the end; "never realized the zeal with which I’d spread myself so thin, so wide, so deep" as my mother did for me. She's been gone far too many years now, but she used to claim she "didn't really care for pie" if only 3 pieces remained for 4 people. Thanks for this lovely poem that reminded me of my mother and my children.
Renee T | April 2025 |
Add a Comment