The Tower

I remember this day last year. This Monday. It was the day I missed the appointment that may have possibly saved you. It is the day where all of my guilt returns. It is the day that I will wish I could repeat forever.

I remember this day last year. This Tuesday when we pre-registered at the hospital we hoped to welcome you to the world in. The same hospital that housed our tiny memorial for you. This is the last day I remember excitement and future.

I remember this day last year. This Wednesday when your movements faltered. How we tried to make you move. How your sister called your name on my belly, and we thought we felt you kick. We were satisfied that you were just sleepy. This is the day I learned never to just wait again.

I remember this day last year. This Thursday when I saw you on the screen so different than the image we had watched kicking and wiggling before. Your body had fallen, and I knew before the words. This is the day I saw your Daddy break. He couldn't catch you before your fall. We couldn't soothe your sister's silence.

I remember this day last year. This Friday of your birth. You were brought to my arms still warm from my body. I hoped with everything that you were playing tricks on us from inside. I wanted them to be wrong so badly. You were silent and soft. And you fit into my arms perfectly, but you didn't look up into my face. You never saw my face. This is the day we could not bring you home.

I remember these days. These days ever since. These days spent in this tower. A tower I've built, high up from my hopes. I look down on them and see them scrambling among the fallen leaves, flitting from flower to flower. I see my hopes from these windows. I see them hiding in the snow and dripping from the eaves. I see them and I wonder, "if they are my hopes, why can I not catch them?" and then I answer, "Frost was my hope, that is why." These are the days when my heart has become a wind that I am forever trying to hold.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

Lately

I've been coming down with memories
the whats and whys of what happened
leave me wilted in winter
burnt by the snow

dark mornings are bright
with the same stars that foretold
but went unread

I've been drawing up a make believe profile
a nose set in stone
smelling the perfume
only angels can breathe

the wood of my dresser cracks
everyday it is older
it held the clothes of my mother and hers

I've been sleeping in questions
unanswered by pillows or night
I wake before the sun
so I will never find a hero

a baby is my hero
my rescuer
my life sent forth
to fill in the holes in the sky

a star went out that night

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

In the Air

So many people have been saying your name lately, baby. They don't know it's your name. But it's nice to hear Frost said out loud by people everywhere. At least we have your name.

Your kitty is lying on the bed next to me right now. He just sighed the way I want to. How do animals get through their days without worry? I so wish that this was possible for me. But if they do it by just forgetting the things that came before, then I could never be a cat. I could never forget the you that was here, and the love that you left with us.

Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

December

This time is not supposed to come. A year is not supposed to happen this way. I should not have to measure your death. It should be your height, your weight, your new teeth. Each month you grew up away from me. A candle flicker is how I turn on a night light for you. A pebble in a rain puddle is how I give you a bath. A breath taken too deeply into my breast is how I feed you. I was looking for papers, I came across your clothes. Frost, you have clothes here on Earth. They are in a drawer and in a closet. They are crisp and new and sweetly miniature. They do not smell of newborn. They smell of cedar. The wood that preserves. But what good is the saving of something you never touched, never soiled, never slept in? What good is the preserving of my memory of buying the outfits when I thought that you would fill them, and play and kick and cuddle? I WANT TO SEE YOU WALK. I WANT TO HEAR YOU SAY MAMA. I WANT TO FEEL YOU SQUEEZE MY HAND. I want to know if you can see me cry. I want to know if my crying hurts you. If it does, I will stop. I don't want to hurt you. Some days I do stop, and people are satisfied. When I don't stop, when I can't stop, people are taken back to not knowing what to do. It's seems so much easier to change a baby's diaper than to mend an injured soul. I miss you terribly tonight, because I know that I love who you would be.
Night, night Frost,
Mama loves you

Forget-me-nots, that's what I'll bring.

I used to go to the cemetary to visit my Father's grave and my Grandfather's grave. Now I find myself searching out the children who left too soon, long ago. I feel like they were there to welcome you to Heaven and so I visit them now to thank them for being your friends and to let them know that they are known.

This is the headstone of Harry, he would have been my Great-great uncle. His mother was Effie. I have seen pictures of her, I recognize her gaze. She is searching for a past that didn't have a future. My Mother has told me of how she almost named me after her because she liked the name Effie. I guess that I was meant to be her namesake in another way. Harry died when he was 2 days old.

Five years old.

People seemed to put more lilies and lambs on the graves of children. Cast in stone, a toy for them to sleep with, for always.

Some of the names I cannot make out due to the age of the stone, but I can see the age and the years, mostly.

I now the secret and the pain in their parents' hearts. "Make sure you remember their names" this statue seems to say.

Goldie. She must have been their light. Her parents' graves were right next to her's. When your Daddy or I die, whoever is the first, one of us will have you placed in our arms before the coffin is closed. We will stay with you.

Two children, I don't know if they were twins or not. Crumbled words.

These doves speak of peace without words. The moss speaks of time without life. I don't believe that there can be nothing.

I have seen this stone more than once. I have wondered why her's is so clear looking, it looks protected and tended, while others seem to have been forgotten.

Two one year olds from different years. At the top, above the dove it reads, "Darlings"

Four little ones all the same family, all different ages, all different years, I believe all girls. All gone. There are so many. Next spring, I will remember to bring flowers, the little stones haven't seen soft life for so long. I will bring petals and whisper your name. So many babies, are there enough Angels to hold all of you?

Night, night Frost

Mama loves you.

Days When the Birds Fly Through You

Today is beautiful, like Spring. It is perfect for a song. What do you think of birds singing? And flying? They are whipped up with the delight of warm weather. And I, with the thought of no Winter. It is a name. So I make it big. Frost is a name, but many make it little. My feet are dancing through the close air now. The air that doesn't show itself, the air that falls around us as we sleep in our beds. The air that doesn't know you. The noise blends me into a pattern of smoothed up sand. Sand that the wind shaped. The same wind burns the skin. My skin is like the sand. Smooth to look at, ancient to feel. What is the sand under water? The sand in the ocean? The sand that doesn't know air. When it is brought to the surface does it feel the same as the dry desert sand? Babies come out of the ocean. They become what we are. You should know the air. Come back from dust with water and air. Look the same as the sand and move back to where I bring you. I couldn't let the snow cover you. The snow, like sand, in drifts collected by the air. I keep you in my room, where our air settles all around. We take it in, you have no lungs. The air adorns your bronze house. It touches you, soft, like piano keys. Can you hear the song the air plays for you? I cannot. But I think that when your breath went out it must have made a new home away from your body. I think that it is here and it falls all around us as we sleep in our beds. I cannot hear the song, but I feel it sometimes. You do not know the air, you are the air. And oh how I feel you.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you

Landscape

I sat under a tree today. I settled down into the Eastern cushion fashioned out of its crackling bark. It is a tree that I have known for years. A tree that I imitated in charcoal when I was twenty. It took me a moment to find it today. It had been awhile since my last visit. The tree has changed a bit in the last year. It is an old, old walnut. I saw no leaves as I walked up to it. Many parts of its trunk have grown hollow. it has dark, dark bark, and in places branches have fallen away to reveal the damaged heartwood. When I sat in the shrill shade of November I still found the warmth I remembered. Low to the ground, I found myself. I found the crispy leaves of many tree-families mingling together, blown by Autumn from their Mother trees. A wind would come up, they would touch and make music. A wind would come up and they would pass each other by. A dog ran through once, moving them as a favor to the wind. Scattering the leaves in a hurdy-gurdy way. Changing their course for just a moment.
When the wind picked up a chill tried to seep in, so I moved to the Southern lump of root. Perched myself and basked in the low sun of late Fall. I tried to lean back into the tree's trunk, but one sharp poke of bark protested my ease. I looked to the ground again. Squirrels had presented so many offerings of acorns to the walnut tree, that for a moment I almost believed that my friend had become an oak. The burl in the root told me otherwise. My own hair matched that burl as it swirled in the wind. Coils of it meandered in front of my eyes, trying to hide the secrets of the wood from my view. Two leaves escaped a nearby pin oak. As I glanced up, they danced together all the way to the dingy grass, only to be separated upon landing.
I moved to the Western throne of roots, it was lower still. The man with the dog passed again. He had been circling. I wondered if he wanted the tree too. If he would have stopped I would have told him your story Frost. Sometimes I long to tell strangers about you. I daydream about having such conversations. Nobody came, nobody asked.
I moved to the chill Northern side. Shallow roots practically plunged me into the earth. I felt the cool of the moss through the thick fabric of my clothing. I waited for what I deserved. On the cool side I looked out in front of me. I saw the tree's shadow stretched long. Majestic, how I remembered it. The shadow didn't show the broken pieces. The exposed core was hidden in the shadow. The shadow had preserved my memory. The memory of a twenty year old before she became a mother. The tree had remembered me.
I stood and watched my own shadow play with the memory. I took a piece of walnut shell from the ground and heard the chatter of a squirrel. I paused and looked to the animal. Her teats showed me that she was a mother also. I spoke your name to her and I knew she understood.
I walked away to other callings. I returned with your sister. We saw the squirrel again, she was sitting in the hollow of the walnut tree chittering towards the heartwood. I know that she was telling the tree your name. I didn't tell your sister the truth, I just let her laugh and chase.
I will be coming back to the tree on your birthday. The tree knows you now, and I told the tree I would be coming. Maybe it will invite both of us to sit together under its branches and listen to its old, old memory.
Night, night Frost
Mama loves you