Two Poems About My Son

As a mother and a poet, my son's life is often a favorite subject for my poetry. Here are two poems featuring him and written about a year apart. Looking back on changes even at his still very young age can wash me with melancholy, so I try to focus on the joys, the blessings and the beauty we have every day.

Feather Sail

Perhaps tomorrow

we will still build a sailing ship together

on the couch with your Chenilly blanket

perhaps the wooden frog will be our passenger

with Edie and Peep, the stuffy chicken and chick.

You may use the Lakenvelder hen’s feather

you found in the chicken coop

as a sail again,

the protoceratops as an astrolabe,

the bugle as a telescope,

all to guide us on our journey

across stormy seas

to exotic lands;

Mr. McGregor’s garden with Peter,

or the bowling alley with bumper lanes,

or to your friend Calder’s house in Santa Fe.

You may pull in the feather sail

and cuddle close to me

as we rock and sway

bravely through a hurricane.

You may raise the feather sail

and bring our ship safely back to shore.

Perhaps tomorrow we may do it all again,

but perhaps it was only for today.

 ~ Cassandra Wensel-Kanne 2010   

Diana Fritillary

Your hand

you are four years and eleven months old

and your hand

reaches toward mine,

gently stops me

from turning the page.

Tears are seeping

out to the banks of your thick lashes.

“Momma, look at that butterfly.”

The tears fall and you hold back a sob.

You point shakily at a

Diana Fritillary

Orange fenestration, fire,

chocolate and fragile edging

spots deviating down in size

painted delicately in the

upper corner of the page,

"Momma, it is so beautiful

that it is opening my heart

and making me cry."

So, I kiss your forehead

and you say,

“Momma, can you see it?

Can you?

Can you see it with your heart?”

Can I see anything with my heart?

Could I ever see anything with my heart?

I look at the butterfly

painted on the page,

the striking repeat of the pattern

the bold contrast of color.

Then I look at you

wipe the tears from your cheek,

I see the monsoon rains on the desert

and the moon just beginning to wane

on the night of your birth

I kiss you again,

look into your vulnerability, your hope,

your perfection

I see every star in the night sky

reflected on the surface of your tears

“I can, my love, I can see with my heart.”

 ~ Cassandra Wensel-Kanne 2011