by Delilah

Her cries drag me from my slumber
unwilling to open my eyes
but knowing I must
so needy
she melts in my arms
a tiny warm bundle of plump cheeks
dimpled fists
chubby legs
Drowsy kisses sprinkle her face
and I breathe her in
all milk and warmth

sleep cannot compare
to baby fat and
sleepy midnight smiles

11/12/2008

by Delilah

I coddle you, cuddle you, hold you like a baby.
Your little legs, not quite as chubby as they once were,
dangle well past my arms.
My baby still, you wiggle away from my kisses
and giggle, knowing I just want to squeeze you.
You playfully prance just outside my reach.
Still soft and squishy, cherubic,
but slimming down and growing tall.
Your fingers look like little girl’s
instead of tiny baby’s,
and now, they shimmer with pink sparkles.
You dress yourself in mismatched clothes,
dress shoes without socks and terry cloth shorts.
You make me smile.

So when you crawl into my lap and say,
“Mommy, rock me,”
I hold you tight and stroke your hair
and kiss your forehead and squeeze your chubby thighs
and sigh.

07/20/2007

by Delilah

Twisting perilously in the biting wind
the last golden leaf clings
to a barren branch.
A forceful gust
pulls the leaf from it’s pointed twig.
It waves goodbye
as it spins, helter skelter,
to the ground.
Lost among so many harvest-colored leaves,
cartwheeling in the wind.

11/13/2006

Gray autumn sky hangs dampened overhead
while leaves of orange and red flurry,
hurried by the insistent October wind.
In the crisp, brown garden,
brightened only by the happy yellow of chrysanthemums,
she dances amidst the wind-swirled leaves.
A pink chiffon ballerina,
her grace and softness
stark against the harvest-hardened stage.
Her smooth finesse taunts the wind,
so hectic, as it stumbles past
in its haste to carry winter closer.
She is Spring! -life in this dying season.

Perilous, the butterfly’s journey across the highway.
Shimmering midnight wings, small flecks of electric blue,
flutter lazily, whimsical,
as burning, churning engines roar along
just inches from her carefree flight.

Across two lanes of molten blacktop
her wings carry her
safely to the tall, cool green of the
roadside grass.

09/11/2006

A young boy found a fairy, nestled in a rosebud.
Her wings, diaphanous, spring green and speckled,
shone irridesent in the mid-day sun.
Cloaked in glamour, she seemed to him nothing more than a dragonfly.
A mischievous gleam in his eye, he captured her by a single wing.
Awakened from her slumber, she flitted and fluttered in his dirty fingers,
her tiny screams, a buzz in the boys ears.
Boyishly cruel, he robbed her of her wings with quick flicks.
He held her, wingless, in the palm of his hand, smiling.
She threw off her glamour, too weak to hold it in place.
The boy saw her beauty, revealed.
With a gasp, he watched her wither.
His hand, her deathbed.

03/26/2006

by Delilah

Tromping through a messy room,
I carry a whining toddler to her impending doom.
It’s naptime and she says she’s not sleepy.
But I plop her in bed, exhausted and weepy.
She kicks and screams and throws a fit,
I just close her door and run for it.
As I make my escape, I’m blinded by pain!
The arch of my foot, the source of my bane.
There on the floor, amidst Barbies and Blue
a damned plastic Princess dress up shoe.
And of course, the heel is facing up.
Wouldn’t you know it! Just my luck!
I stumble. I curse. I hop down the hall.
“I think it broke the skin!” I bawl.

03/18/2006

by Delilah

—

by Delilah

Her foggy tendrils whirl and fade
as she drifts through a grey garden.
Gossamer fingers, barely there,
caress familiar stone.
A slender shapely vapor,
she haunts this marble orchard,
waiting for a rose or blossom
to be set upon her tomb.
In her silvery realm,
she has forgotten time.
No soul still lives that knows her name.
Her headstone, worn smooth, nameless.
A languid breeze plays on her
tresses, finespun wisps of mist,
offering only dried leaves
to her resting place.

03/18/2006