No Idea!

November 19, 2020November 18, 2020 V.J. Knutson33 Comments

Girls are lucky: just need to find the right man –
looked after for life.
Advice from a teenaged brother.

Right! I yell back, fifty years later.
It was all a vacation –
raising the children on my own
looking for God in the midst of chaos
partners with wandering eyes
or absent…always absent…
still waiting for that “looking after”

And how did you make out, Brother Dear?
Oh, that’s right… married
… woman with a good job
willing to let you putter in the background

Guess we were both misled.

(Image my own.)

culture · Family · life · poetry · writing

Familial

November 17, 2020November 2, 2020 V.J. Knutson18 Comments

History invents theorem
generation repeating
variations on a misery
absent fathers
mothers overwhelmed
heartache welded
into young psyches
till inspiration invites
a new hypothesis.

(Tuesdays I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own.)

Family · poetry · relationships · writing

Looking For Silver Linings

August 25, 2020August 21, 2020 V.J. Knutson20 Comments

Shoulder to shoulder
we contemplate clouds, hunt for
silver, my brother
lost, then found, ponders what ifs –
clouds become threads, unite us.

(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Photo mine)

Family · poetry · relationships

Parental Passages

August 16, 2020August 15, 2020 V.J. Knutson17 Comments

Carefully we construct
security for offspring –
add luxuries to entertain
accommodate growth
play host to revolving-
door friends and dates.

And yet, we are graded
on performance – met
or unmet expectations –
held up against a stack
of other super parents,
silhouettes of perfection.

Still, we celebrate goals,
sprouting family, ignore
the slanders, and ease
into age with a tad of kook,
or wild inappropriateness –
all expressions of our love.

(First edition of this poem appeared Feb/’18. Image from personal collection. Submitted for Reena’s Exploration challenge, choosing the prompt: silhouette.)

art · childhood · Family · poetry · psychology · relationships · writing

Still Digging

August 15, 2020August 3, 2020 V.J. Knutson20 Comments

Father, as immoveable
as a mountain
taught us to orchestrate
submontane routes

Circumnavigating
his rocky moods
bestowed upon us
a fear of masculinity

Resilience instilled
the necessity of mining
gold from darkness:
still digging.

(Sketch mine)

Family · poetry · writing

Define Family

August 4, 2020July 27, 2020 V.J. Knutson7 Comments

Define family –
nest of promises, story
filled houses of stone?
Expectations built lacking
substance – original sin?

(Tuesdays I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson, this tanka edited from original. Image mine.)

art · Family · Love · poetry · relationships · writing

Birch Trees (with recording)

April 16, 2020April 12, 2020 V.J. Knutson29 Comments

Strains of Tijuana Brass flood the yard
while father on bended knee tends
his garden, tiers of stone edged rows
encircling a trio of birch trees.

Father points out birches on Sunday
drives, as if the bark is sacred, leaves
whispering a secret I cannot hear –
stirs in me an indefinable longing.

My husband planted birch trees
there amongst the flower beds –
how the leaves shimmer in sunlight,
how my heart quickens, bittersweet.

Imagine Father seated there, mellow
as he was in old age, angst expended,
tyranny of parenting set aside – understand
love unexpressed dwells in birch trees.

(Watercolour image by yours truly)

Family · Love · memoir · poetry · writing

Sibling Camaraderie

April 11, 2020April 6, 2020 V.J. Knutson30 Comments

Remember that time
wading to the caves
St Martin’s summer

How the tide rushed in
Atlantic pulling us apart
my body weak with laughter

How you shouted, coaxed –
once ashore we collapsed
wet but warm, hearts flooded.

(My brother and I weren’t raised together, as his father abducted him at age 10. Reunited years later, I treasure the moments we get to spend together, even though they are few and far between. Image my own.)