My firstborn turned 23 this week. I bought her items for her kitchen, now that she’s a grown-up with a place of her own, and passed down a pair of special earrings my mom bought for me around the same age.
For those of you who don’t know, I wrote poetry extensively through high school and into my late 20’s. I enjoyed some success (as much as a poet is allowed these days) with publication under the name Alex Grayton or Alexandria Grayton. I wrote intense love poetry, dark vampire poetry, and…some baby love poems. They were published in magazines, newspapers, literary journals–pre-Internet. For poets of that era, success wasn’t about getting paid–insert laugh here because getting paid even a penny per word was incredibly rare–but about merely getting your work in print.
I uncovered a small stash of “baby poems” a few weeks ago while scanning very old file folders. I thought I’d share a couple here now, in honor of my daughter’s birthday.
The Startle Reflex
by Alex Grayton (copyright 1990, Lorna Tedder)
In days past
I put my hand over you,
felt for your kick,
your gentle tumblings inside me.
And now in quiet perfection,
you in your crib,
drawing breath so silently
that I reach to feel
the delicate rising
of your tiny chest–
I wake you by mistake.
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Turbulence
by Alex Grayton (copyright 1990, Lorna Tedder)
I sleep in fitful half-dream
hugging briefcase to my chest
and see nothing out the window
but the grayness of the wing.
Here in a can of strangers
hanging in the bumpy sky,
drone of engines throbbing in my ears,
I long for the weight of my child’s embrace.
A pilot sits beside me
on his way to another flight,
sleeping in fitful half-dreams
and hugs his medalled cap to his chest.
A paranormal thriller where books are alive, knowledge is dangerous, and the librarian is not what she seems.
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Read it free in my online Library →