The Quarantine Blackout Poetry Project is a weekly project my 12 year old daughter and I work on together. It is my attempt to create “our thing.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

This week Haley and I present four new blackout poems–two by Haley and two by me.

Celebrating special days, like Mother’s Day, through a computer screen is still weird.

But while the world is a mess, screen celebrations are all we have. And so it’s the important job of us Earthlings to keep the party going. My mother and my wife have taught me that the human spirit is an amazing thing, a thing that’s never more alive when sharing life with others.

Haley and I went into this week determined to construct poems themed on the most important person in our lives– mom. A mother’s job description is long and endless. I wouldn’t want it. But you–the moms out there, continue to show up, show love, and show the best of the human spirit.

Haley’s poems are conventional. Mom is about the joy a mother must feel when everyone she loves is together. And It’s going to be okay is how mom’s shoulder is the best shoulder to cry on.

I took a slightly different approach. My wife is not a big drinker, however one of her favorite household catchphrases, one that she often says when one of the kids does a very kid thing, is “I need a drink!” So my poems, A Little Oblivion and Beer, are themed on alcohol. Because it’s Mother’s Day and we should celebrate. And because we’re 8 weeks into quarantine and, I have a feeling, moms everywhere, including my wife, could use a drink.

Be well,

Jay and Haley

Haley’s Poems

Mom

It’s going to be okay

My poems

A Little Oblivion

Beer

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Be where your feet are

If you’re feet could talk right now they might say, “This is life. Accept it. Or deny it at your peril. But either way, put a sock on me. The piggies are cold.”

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