Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver

I was gobsmacked to learn that my poem won Publication of the Month of May on Spillwords. I’m truly grateful to all of you who voted for the poem. Because the other works that were nominated were powerful and amazing, I am humbled by this news.
Thank you, Dagmara K, for offering writers around the world a beautiful venue for their work.
The poem will appear on the sidebar each day this month as the featured image shows.

My poem is a double haibun. A haibun is a prose paragraph followed by a haiku. The poem came about after an attempt to collaborate with Nolcha Fox on memoir haibun about our parents. We realized that we should do our own haibun on family. Because the topic was squirrels, I thought about my parents’ roles and my family life. I have 6 siblings, so our nest was always full! We also moved many times as Dad said he needed bigger churches and homes. I’ve heard that a move is like a fire because things are discarded to lower the cost of the move. I thought about how my parents prioritized what got on the van. We definitely had a great deal of stuff!
Also, the poem addresses the departure of each child as they gained independence. My parents grieved each loss. They didn’t see our gaining personal agency as a happy time for them. The “empty nest syndrome” hit them hard. Children, things to hold onto like metal trucks and puzzle pieces to organize into boxes? Like squirrels hiding their treasures for winter? Such was my parents’ love. Deeply devoted to emotional survival. Life, love, and loss keep growing just like a squirrel’s teeth.

A Squirrel’s Front Teeth Never Stop Growing

Mom foraged for meals for nine daily. She hunted for quilt patterns and party dresses for teen girls. She gathered sea shells to glue to our gift baskets. She organized our puzzle pieces by colors and shapes. She sorted socks of all sizes and seasons. She stashed pennies to invest in Dad’s retirement. Our nest was always a crowded mess. 

One by one, we fell out 
and scurried away 
to our own trees.

Dad squirreled away all his childhood toys and family heirlooms. To haul from nest to nest. His old red metal truck. His mother’s doilies and kitchen utensils. His father’s tools. Even his old college papers and letters. But my toys, paintings, and memo pads with my poems. Discarded at the base of old tree homes. 

My dreams, abandoned
for strangers to scavenge
and rain to drown.