Expecting

It’s been a while again, and the last few months have been full of changes. Some things I expected and many I did not. One I didn’t expect earlier in the year was that I’d be working from home every day after we hit the middle of March. I was used to doing that several times a week already, but it feels actually quite different to do full time. While some social aspects of my job have morphed, and I miss the in-person contact, the timing has been sort of a blessing in disguise for me.

I’m very excited to be expecting my first child in August! Being able to work from home as well as staying at home more often due to regular activities being cancelled has made it a bit easier at a time when I’ve had fluctuating energy levels as well as other common and sometimes unpleasant pregnancy symptoms, and wanted to spend more time learning as much as I could about what was going on with my body and my baby. Of course there has also been a lot to prepare, discussions to have and decisions to make. It’s been a fun time with my husband as we’ve felt our very active baby flip and kick and anticipated the future.

It’s strange and wonderful and no words can describe it. It’s not all, but part of the reason I’ve written less here this year even though there is no doubt much to think and write about. And I’m sure that soon a new little being will take up a lot of time and care, and will also give me a lot more to write about that I couldn’t from my own experience before.

Here are two untitled poems I wrote during poetry month this year:

Sweet baby in my belly
Soon to feel your kicks I hope
Still I know you're there, because
Heartburn, aches, and growth!


Never thought
I'd enjoy
Getting kicked

Maybe punched
In the gut
But today

Hey baby
Getting strong
Inside me

The 51st Time

I started working on the following poem at the end of the year in 2020, and did not finish it until now, in time for my third wedding anniversary. After a long hiatus, here it is.

The 51st Time
by Aubri Wilson

The 51st time I fell in love with you
No, not the 51st time I fell in love
That'd be much different
And no, it doesn't mean after 50 failed attempts
I finally got it right 
Each time was special in its own way
What does it mean to fall in love that many times?

Well, some say they fall deeper every day, every year
Perhaps, what I thought was falling in love
The first, or tenth, or fiftieth time was different
But in its own way, at the time, it was true

With the first you weren't even there
Your voice, though, grew a presence
That curled around my insides
Like an embrace that bore
A warm tickle I couldn't explain

And by the 51st time I knew
Still there is more to come
As you and I change and grow
So our love will 
And while it's not always easy
I don't doubt when you hold me
Or when we're apart
The 52nd time and 
Many more
Will come into view

Christmas Outshines

Christmas Hope by Aubri Wilson

What a mother like none before or since

Who allowed the Son of God to be born

And choose to give up His life

When the time came

What a mother who was chosen

To love and care for Him as a baby

And a child with a stepfather of strong faith

Who taught Him to carve

And when the child grew and discovered

His mission which He accepted long before

His first condescension as a baby born

In poverty with nowhere but a stable to rest

And shepherds waiting for the firstborn

Lamb and not only a lamb for the temple

This was for a greater sacrifice

Christmas gave rise to the humble man

Who became our Savior, God and not

Man only but in both ways He

Understands us and shows us

What to become and how

Now the tree, the wreaths

The stars, bells, and lights

Remind me of the night

He came ringing in hope

For the sweet gift of eternal life

If comparisons of the Grinch with the COVID-19 virus stealing Christmas away jangle in your head, if images of a cartoonish thing called COVID-Boo-Hoo (which although it rhymes with Cindy Lou Who is her antithesis), are bothering you, consider Christmas. For me things I’ve missed this year that come with most Christmases are outshined by the love, and peace and joy of Christmas. I’ve heard many say they are glad to be putting 2020 behind them, but I received some of the best gifts this year. These were precious time with family, time to reflect, time to rethink priorities. I was given a son and that will forever make 2020 a special year for me.

I cannot compare the things I lost or wished for that changed this year and have not come back with the loss and fear and pain some have felt. Yet I am convinced always, that anyone, anytime, anywhere, can find blessings to be thankful for, and Christmas is one of those things for me. I hope you find love and joy during this beautiful season and come into the new year with hope for better things.

Merry Christmas!

Free e-book during Thanksgiving weekend!

The Kindle e-book version of Life S t o k e s Embers will be available on Amazon for free this Thanksgiving weekend (Thursday through Saturday)! Check out this deal on my poetry before it’s over.

Life S t o k e s Embers available for Download!

Big announcement! Last year I published Life S t o k e s Embers in print, and now it’s available as a Kindle e-book on Amazon! It will be available for free on Kindle for a limited time coming up so check back for when that will be! Get the e-book now here.

As I have pondered on events this year ranging from the global pandemic, protests, riots, fires, the U.S. presidential election, and some of the cataclysmic, disappointing, fragile, unsettling, disturbing, combustive and despairing effects, I’ve thought the themes and poems in Life S to k e s Embers are even more relevant.

All of us have seen life altered, many tragically, but maybe for some in a few unexpected ways, better, or just different. As we continue on and into the next year, I hope you will find as I ponder about in Life S t o k e s Embers, the blessings that can come from embers in your life. Whatever life has stirred up for you this year, whatever may test and try your heart and soul, you can come through it better. Perhaps it will be with smoke rising around you still, but nonetheless, better and stronger.

A New World

It’s hard to believe I’ve passed my two year anniversary on this blog! October 27th, 2018 was my first post: Fear and Creativity. Much has changed since that first post. I made blogging a regular part of my schedule which has now dropped off some with life changes. I published two books in 2019, got married, and this year had a son. It’s been a lot of good change! Of course not all of this change has been easy along the way and much more is coming but that is exciting too. My longer stretches between writing here have been largely due to the latter change. But here is a little poem I wrote about him last month when he was nearly two months old. It’s a new world for him and for me as well.

 A Newborn Son 
 by Aubri Wilson

 A newborn son
 With wide eyes
 And closed fists
 A long torso
 And hairy ears
 A perfect rosiness in his skin
 And perfect little pink lips
 His head covered in fine threads
 
 His first glances at me are everything
 A long-awaited moment and meeting
 Was realized almost in fantasy
 But his fingers curled around one of mine feel real
 Feeding after feeding my own milk while holding him
 Loving and crying and comforting and caring while exhausted
 Laughing at squeaky hiccups, funny faces, and soon coos and smiles
 Dreaming of how he will grow and all we can share
 While longing for this early time to go not so fast
 
 Before he is older,
 And no longer can be called so
 I must remember for a future me
 The privilege and challenge
 Sometime bewilderment
 Sometimes awe
 Sometimes unbelievable
 But always amounting to the joy of becoming acquainted with
 And introducing the world to
 A newborn son
 

The Unnoticed Seeds

If I can remember yesterday

I'd uncover days with two sides

Stealthy darkness trying to choke

But light fighting back each time

And if I let tears fall

I was planting them in soil

Hardly noticed beneath my feet

Until those seeds I dropped

Began to push through and rise up

Surprising, yes, but now I see where it came from

If I can remember yesterday

by Aubri Wilson

 

It’s been a little while, and somehow I didn’t post at all during National Poetry Month this year! I did, however, celebrate by writing a poem each day as I have for the previous two years. The above is one free verse poem I wrote on the 23rd of April.

Perhaps with spring past (where I live in Arizona while the calendar says it’s not summer yet, the temperatures now say otherwise) but still to be enjoyed last month, I thought about the newness, the subtle growth of a seed germinating and pushing up through the soil, to flower, to bear fruit.

In the Bible, there’s also an analogy with tears and seeds in Psalms 126:5-6. Here’s the text from the King James Version:

5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

I believe this might have inspired Joel Ansett in the song below with this beautiful line: “‘cause I don’t think it’s an accident that tears are shaped like seeds”.

Lately with unprecedented hardships around the world, if you’ve let tears fall, know they can turn into seeds, and maybe even grow something beautiful.

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Butterflies and Your Moment

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to be a butterfly? Starting out as a caterpillar, bursting out of your chrysalis transformed into something new, chasing a friend around your favorite nectar source? If you’re a Monarch or even a Question Mark or maybe a Painted Lady or Fiery Skipper, how would it feel to migrate each year to escape the cold and find the flowers?

Recently, on my birthday my husband and I enjoyed a visit to the largest butterfly conservatory in the U.S. It was a glorious sight to behold with so many active butterflies of varying colors fly this way and that around their rain forest space. Sometimes they flew right in front of our faces, almost colliding. Some bees (in a separate enclosed space), chickens, and grasshoppers also inhabited the area. I was lucky to have a few of the butterflies land on my little backpack I was wearing (maybe they liked the butterfly design on it). One landed on my arm which tickled!

Butterflies are truly amazing if you think about their transition from caterpillar to adult insect, and the migration facts for all the migrating kinds. And did you know that if a butterfly damages a wing, it won’t fully heal? Perhaps it’s kind of like if you had a leg cut off. But for them, they may not be able to fly again.

And did you ever hear of this amazing “butterfly doctor” who repaired a Monarch’s wing so he could once more take flight? Sometimes, we may feel like we have damaged our “wings” and need a little help from others for what we can’t do for ourselves. Read the inspiring story of the repaired butterfly here.

It reminds me of the Beatles singing, “You were only waiting for this moment to arise”. Maybe it was about a blackbird, but it could be about a butterfly, or a human. Who knows? That moment when you feel broken and receive another chance to shine, like kintsugi pottery, could be a moment you were waiting for after all the trouble.

Cover Photo thanks to: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=9133&picture=blue-butterfly

Hello in 2020!

No, I didn’t disappear forever. I’m still here, breathing, and I couldn’t stray from blogging for so long. There’s going to be a lot to write about this year, and it won’t be anything I’ll want to forget. If this is the year of vision, I’m starting out seeing through a glass darkly, but expect to know so much more by the end of it.

A year ago I met my husband for the first time, and though we didn’t talk then, I knew he existed and that allowed everything else to come. It’s strange for me to think I’ve known him for only a short time, but a year is a momentous mark. I’d be okay if none of what happened did, I think, but it’s so much better with him. Even with my writing, he turned into a raving fan and was there to support me for the launch of both of my books.

I once heard an author discuss how his wife gave him a gift of time to develop his writing skills away from work. She worked to support them while he focused on his craft, and it paid off in the end as writing is now his full-time career. So that support from my husband was one very important good sign from the beginning.

Sometimes I’m a sucker for emotional Got Talent auditions like this one I found the other day. Something about the trust these young aerial performers had in each other and the background music for their act made some words come to my head.

“Glowball” by carobe is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

A Pact and a Promise

by Aubri Wilson


I'll make you a pact

I'll make you a promise

That even when we're far away

I'll never forget you

I'll never regret you

And I'll come back to you someday

On our own missions separate

You in the mountains

And I in the sea

To combine again at a future time



And when you miss the old memories

We've had and simple days

And feel lonely at night

Look up at the same moon

I'll be watching

And I'll send you my song

You'll hear it carried to you



If only in dreams we see each other

For a while, I'll fly and take the trip

Every night to hold you before you wake

And if you cry in the morning

Soon the sun will help you smile

And you'll be finding all you need

To discover on your own



But if time falls over itself

And you start to feel lost

Know I'm reaching for you

And soon enough dear

I'll be by your side again

For I made a pact

And I made a promise

Christmas Lighting

Each Christmas I love to see the lights put on display. It’s something that’s always so cheerful, and it reminds me of why I celebrate this most special holiday. At the beginning of this Christmas season, my husband and I were walking downtown and found that some of the trees strung with lights were not lit up. We stopped numerous times as he plugged in the lights on forgotten trees.

I don’t know who else would do so. This happened on multiple occasions while we were walking in the area. It made me think of how he’s brought more light into my life. And these past few weeks I’ve reflected on how Christ has brought so much light into the world.

Here is my Christmas poem this year:

Christmas Lighting 
by Aubri Wilson

All along the houses
And trailing downtown
Trees and shrubs
Windows and doors
Rooftops and eaves
Outside and inside
White or colorfully bright
It cheers me to see
Yet nothing compares
With the lighting
Christ gives
Bringing great joy
And great love
All among His children
Outside their windows
And inside their hearts
That true Christmas Lighting
May always be found

 

Merry Christmas!