Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Bink does not sleep solidly through the night, ever. When she was younger it was especially challenging, because she’d wake up and need me to be right there with her, and she’d often be up for hours. Sometimes, after waking at 1 or 2 am, she’d stay up the rest of the night and all through the next day. I was really tired so much of the time. Even so, there was a certain kind of mystery and grace in every aspect of my mothering journey with Bink. Still is.

Years ago I wrote this poem about the night waking. I submitted it to a few journals, and received the customary rejections that are familiar to all writers, maybe especially poets. I decided to try once more to find this poem a home. And, yay! it has just been published in the online literary journal Vitamin ZZZ. The whole journal is quite beautiful and I hope you’ll check it out. You can see it by clicking here. 

The poem:

Night Graces

Each sleep cycle you wake happy, chirping
psalm-songs into the darkness, small
warm circles of air rising from your
curled body,

and you tumble toward my bed,
proclaim morning
whether it is midnight or three or,
more thankfully, five, and I

surface from moondreams
and embrace you,
little Talitha of Ursa Major,
Gemma of Corona Borealis,
insistent beacon,
nudging my fatigue aside so
this perfect view

of the stars,
those glorious jewels of the night,

reveals itself
as the gift it is

and I,
your student, humbly bring
a glass of water.

 

–Melinda Coppola

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