vows and moments and movement

so here I am.  Starting another school year.  I have a teacher friend far away who is so anxious.  I don't feel that.  I wonder if it is because it is my 14th year teaching.  Or perhaps it is because I have so many things to be stressed over...I don't know.  I do know that my wrist is sore from trying to start my damn lawn mower.  I had to borrow my neighbor's but I got the lawn done.  And I got half (ish) of my room taken care of, as well as the finding the final box of special framed items and the cloth cube drawers for the kids' stuff in the living room.  It's such a strange thing, to be here today.  I was putting up these final special things on the walls:  a gorgeous painting we got in Peru on our Honeymoon, my Lithuanian flag piece, the Notre Dam drawing my mother and father got years ago that used to hang in my living room when I was growing up...and then there is this neat, oriental type writing thing.  It is actually English words, done in an ornate, oriental style.  John got it for me for Valentine's day several years ago.  It says our names.  I wanted to put it above the t.v. and I really struggled with that. I am thinking about when/if I find someone else, and where things will go then...the same way I am thinking about pictures of the kids as they get older and where those will go...but I decided to be here now.  So I put it up above the t.v.

At church today, I tried to write a poem.  I don't know how good it is, but I thought I'd share anyway. Sharing is good.
~~~~~~~~

Imbued with a strength
so soft
it sways

a veil-thin
gauze cloak
draped loosely over
longing shoulders

the body beneath
naked
scarred and tattooed
arms filled with the feat
of lifting a dying man
back into bed

breasts heavy with
the memory of milk
for the sweet babes now too big
for the breast

a belly soft, sliced open
stitched back together
a powerful symbol
my manifestation of
the crucible I've crawled through
cried through
fallen in
crumbled in
climbed up
searched through
longing to find the guide
in the ongoing search
of my part of the vow
till MY death do we part.