Re-nesting

After a year on their own, my adult daughters are back home to get ready for their next steps.

I’ve shared this little picture by my oldest daughter so many times, but it never stops being adorable.

Nelly Bryce

wrote a stunning essay over at

Poetry Pals

that feels like she can see directly into my heart. One of my favorite parts: “Everything…is so wrong right now. Rioting on one hand, reading retreats on the other. Sunshiny holidays and starvation. Terror and beauty. I can’t make it make sense. Maybe as poets it is not our job to make it make sense, only document the senselessness. I am devastated and full of rage….I am determined that we cannot tolerate what is happening to our humanity (has already happened).” (Click here for the full post, which is wonderful.)

I’m in the United States and I’m watching fascism sink its fangs further into my country each day. My oldest son keeps asking me, “Are you okay, Mom?” because sometimes I can’t keep the despair off my face. It feels strange to keep writing and sharing my poems. But then I remember how reading poetry and essays here on Substack are often the jolt of joy (or truth, or beauty) that I need to keep going. So here I am, with a poem. Vive la résistance.

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Is there a name for the process
when a bird flies back home

with bags of sketchbooks and boxes 
sealed with black duct tape?

When the bird is full-grown
but needs a soft place to roost

a nest lined with throw pillows
stitched with her youth?