From Papa to Grandpa

 Joe Cottonwood  

 

 Joe Cottonwood and his family when they were young

As they grow, we shrink

By Joe Cottonwood

My thoughts on fathering:

Parenting is hard work with moments of terror. 
Parenting is the most fun I’ve ever had. 
Parenting is how we give our values—
and our bodies—to our children. 
As they grow, we shrink.
Of course I write poems about it—hundreds of poems. 
Poetry is how I process my feelings. 
Parenting, each day is like a poem 
with images that shift, 
slowly, sometimes taking years
until the meaning is clear.


My poems about fathering:

We were poor before we had kids 
and then we were poorer

This windstorm could blow a sprite away 
so in the fading-flower microbus
I deliver bright-eyed kids to school, 
our gift to teachers. Fingers of the gale 
nearly lift us from the road 
but by afternoon pickup, calm restores. 

With kids we head into hills up a spaghetti road 
patched like an asphalt quilt. Little hands 
gather pine boughs ripped by violent air, 
settled everywhere like lacy green surf. 
Filled, the bus is scented, a forest on wheels. 

Returning home, a Mercedes woman nearly 
hits us wrong side around a curve. But doesn’t. 
She waves, so sorry. Big smile—
Almost wiped out your family bye-bye. 
Out the window little hands 
thrust middle fingers.

In the cottage with branches and twine 
we build a tree, free. Joy to this world.
Some day we’ll have money 
to buy a pre-cut symbol of Yule. 
Never so cool. 

Kids. Rainy Day

We try out the new restaurant.
Good news: they serve beer.
Bad: the daughter throws a fork, 
hitting the son in the face. 
I cut the son’s sandwich wrong
should be an X 
not a cross.
He wails, amplified by
two-year-old angsty snot
until I shout at him 
PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO HEAR THAT SHIT, 
which knocks him back
to good behavior
although the manager
tells us to leave.
I tell myself
we need the rain.


the kids say

the kids say
for breakfast we ate
dead pig with bird abortion

served by dad
with love


Lily packs a little blue bag 

for her first overnight,
packs a blanket, a panda, a jar of peanut butter,
what she calls “the warm of life.” 
And forgets to bring it.

Rose and I square dance at the firehouse.
We miss Lily. I say to Rose
“Forget dancing. Let’s go home and make bread.” 
Heads snap around. As if I said 
Let’s go home and make love.

Not for bread but we do leave the dance early 
because Rose feels like crap. Not pregnant this time 
but nauseous often and we don’t know why.
We sit in the car under a 3/4 moon 
as a cat stalks silently down the street.
Feeling morbid we talk about making our wills.

Next day Lily returns.
She never missed the little blue bag until now
but it makes her sad that she forgot,
which makes Rose and I sad. 
We spread Lily’s blanket on the deck 
so she and Rose and panda and I watch 
the sun go down, the bats come out. Lily says 
“Let’s go inside and make peanut butter cookies,”
and we do, and we eat them warm before bed.


Chatterbox

She to whom talking is like breathing
at age 3 a mockingbird of words
wades in foam on a Pacific beach.

A sleeper-wave slams 
her little body face down 
floating.

I grab hair like seaweed 
pull her up coughing spitting.
Later, wrapped in towel 
she is quiet, thoughtful
when to my lurching heart she says
If I drowned would you have another baby?

The silence I could not imagine.

Verse-Virtual June 2022


Boy, Almost Six

You are five or as you say, almost six.
You have a toolbox
like me.
You read books in bed
like me.
You even make up poems
like me.
I am thirty-five which is almost forty.
I wish I could cry
like you
and scream at people when I'm angry
like you
and heal my wounds with a blanket
like you.
With your eyes through which
I am learning to see,
take in our redwood mountains,
our blackberry hills,
quick squirrels.
Brake for them, please, when you drive
when you're sixteen, which is almost
twenty-one.
Learn to love moss
and fat spiders.
Feel the fungus feeding on decay.
I am rotting, my son, as you feed on me
and I would have it
no other way.

From my book Son of a Poet


Lions in the Grass

Littlest grandson, age one, knows what lions do
but can’t pronounce dandelion as he toddles 
over grass pointing at yellow flowers 
saying “Grr! Grr!”
He calls me G’pa.

G’ma and me, we drive to town 
to buy a new electric clothes drier. 
The old one’s wheezing like me. 
We find one with a chip for memory 
so it can learn our drying habits, 
remember them as we grow older.

Bigger grandson, age four, 
with mischievous smile says “You want to hear 
something weird about my parents?”
G’ma and me, we both think: “Uh oh.”
And he reveals: “My mom is 41 years old 
and my dad is only 40, but he’s taller!”

Meanwhile I’m cutting a sandwich and ask, 
“You want it square or in a circle?”
He answers, age four mind you, 
“I want an irregular polyhedron.”
May we remember as we grow older.