CLOSE TO LISA by Margaret Vidale

Close to Lisa is one of my earliest poems…

I wrote it eleven years ago, when our daughter Lisa was pregnant with our first grandson. I was so full of joy and wonder, I intuitively stretched out my heart and mind, striving to find the right words.

Now I believe I was stretching towards a vast, spiritual power, which reached back to me and, indeed, reaches to all of us. I have been stretching ever since!

~Photography by Michael Kornos~

Close to Lisa

Seated close to me, my daughter

Lisa is lost in thought.

Small, sweet smiles

play along the curve of her delicate lips.

She rubs her round belly

with soothing, circular motion;

her message is repeated

again and again –

I am here, I love you.

Once my baby girl, now a kind

wise woman, she carries forward

Life’s miraculous cycle,

just as I did so many years ago.

Life creating life,

the miracle is repeated

again and again,

each birth unique and astounding

each birth familiar and old as time.

As I watch her transformation

my heart expands with joy and gratitude,

for surely I am the luckiest of grandmothers

to be here, seated close to Lisa.

Photography by Sheng Chen

Margaret Vidale returned to her childhood love of writing poetry when she retired from teaching in 2001. Growing up, reading and writing poetry were ways of escaping severe child abuse. Many of her early adults poems were efforts to break the silence she carried for most of her life. Writing those poems was healing and liberating, which enabled Margaret to branch out into a wider range of subjects. She feels fortunate and grateful that some of her work has appeared In Pearl, Solstice, Sol-Lit, The Whirlwind Review, Avocet, The Caribbean Writer, Still Crazy and other small press publications.

~If you are interested in seeing your poetry appear in this blog, or submitting a poem by a woman that has inspired you, please click here for submission guidelines. I greatly look forward to hearing from you!~

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