February 7, 2025: "New Mother," Strategic Planning, "Snow Blower Ode"

I spent a good portion of my day at a strategic planning retreat for work.  (That sounds like a military operation, but it was actually not too horrible.)  We talked about communication and the future.  Told jokes.  Had drinks and ate lunch.  (I had a grilled muenster and roasted tomato sandwich with onion rings, in case you're interested.)  By the end of our session, I felt like we'd given birth to something new and productive.

Sharon Olds writes about having a baby . . . 

New Mother

by: Sharon Olds

A week after our child was born,
you cornered me in the spare room
and we sank down on the bed.
You kissed me and kissed me, my milk undid its
burning slip-knot through my nipples,
soaking my shirt. All week I had smelled of milk,
fresh milk, sour. I began to throb:
my sex had been torn easily as cloth by the
crown of her head, I'd been cut with a knife and
sewn, the stitches pulling at my skin--
and the first time you're broken, you don't know
you'll be healed again, better than before.
I lay in fear and blood and milk
while you kissed and kissed me, your lips hot and swollen
as a teen-age boy's, your sex dry and big,
all of you so tender, you hung over me,
over the nest of the stitches, over the
splitting and tearing, with the patience of someone who
finds a wounded animal in the woods
and stays with it, not leaving its side
until it is whole, until it can run again.

It's a pretty intimate poem--this first sexual encounter between Olds and her husband after the birth of their daughter.  There's longing in these lines.  Fear.  Lust.  Yearning.  Hunger.  Everything has changed for them because of this fragile, new addition to their lives.  

As most of my faithful disciples know, I'm not a big fan of change.  I don't like new additions or emendations.  I eat the same breakfast and lunch every day.  Say the same prayers.  Listen to the same music.  Every night, I sit down and write a blog post.  Sure, there are sometimes slight variations, depending on the day of the week, but even those slight variations are pretty routine for me.

So, talking for an entire day about changes in my place of work was not completely comfortable for me.  But it wasn't as bad as oral surgery.  Because I was part of the discussion--instead of simply being told, through email, that X, Y, and Z are going to take place--I didn't experience that much anxiety.  (I still had anxiety, but I mixed it with gin and tonic to make it more palatable.)

Perhaps these changes will be good, make my life (and everyone else's lives at the library) better.  Sort of like buying a snow blower after shoveling snow for 20 years.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about a snow blower tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

In honor of the birthday of John Deere, inventor of the steel plow, write a poem about your favorite labor-saving device.  Examples:  coffee grinder/maker, ice maker, electric can opener, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, etc.  Bonus source:  consult the user manual of your chosen device.

Snow Blower Ode

by: Martin Achatz

Snow ambushes our house

in the middle of night, captures

our garbage cans and car,

blockades the driveway, turns

trees into POWs, shackled

with drift and ice.  In this siege,

O snow blower, you sleep

in the bunker of the garage, 

mouth wide and open, ready

for your cold, cold breakfast.

You're Little Boy in the belly

of Enola Gay, Grant chasing

Lee to Appomattox, wood horse

waiting at the gates of Troy.

When the drums of your heart

roar and you march into battle

at morning light, rabbits flee, crows

retreat to sky, and you, O Napoleon, 

O Joan of Arc, wage your war against

the white supremacy of winter.