April is National Poetry Month. Every year, my dear friend (and poet Extraordinaire), Mary Lee Hahn chooses a theme, and writes a poem each day. Mary Lee blogs and posts her poems at two different places- YEAR OF READING and a fabulous new poetry blog POETREPOSITORY.
This year, Mary Lee has chosen the theme, "PO-EMotions." She promises, "This year, I will write a poem a day that either evokes an emotion, or uses an emotion word in the title or body of the poem." Her list of emotions is here. I'm joining her, at least some days.
"Languages of Love"
That hearts and candy
and flowers love.
I don't know
how to speak that language.
But the buying groceries
and cooking dinner
and helping with algebra homework
and washing uniforms
and sitting in the bleachers
and making pizza runs
for the football team
I know how to do that kind of love.
And the staying up really late
making a tres leche cake
for the social studies potluck
or spending the whole weekend
helping build a museum room diorama
of a twentieth century
African American poet.
I know how to do that kind of love.
The not having dinner with friends
because everyone on the basketball team
is getting brand new matching shoes
and I hadn't planned on that expense
or the working extra jobs
to pay for an apartment,
and groceries and public service bills
I know how to do that kind of love.
The sitting at parent teacher conferences
or suspension hearings
hearing about your inadequacies
and the heart stopping panic
as you lay unmoving on the football field
I know how to do that kind of love.
The telling you that you can't come home
until you straighten up
and get your act together
and be the men
that I know you are capable of being.
That's another language
I don't know how to speak.
(c) Carol Wilcox, 2015
That is the powerful language of love you know and speak. Keep on loving those boys, and I hope they begin to see themselves they way you see them.
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