Sandra Doller: I’m Sandra Doller, and this is PoetryNow. I would say I’m recently a mother, but (LAUGHS) my kid is four now, so I don’t know how recent that is. Since this piece is about lifespans, the relativity of time in relation to different lives and forms of life, that seems really recent to me, but not to a four-year-old. For my partner to get diagnosed with cancer at 40 felt so unfair. You know, we’re not gonna have lots of days together. We’re not gonna make cappuccinos in the morning every morning for the next 45 to 50 years. Maybe we only have a year, maybe we have a month, maybe we have 10 years, or 20. We actually were decidedly not procreating (LAUGHS) for this life. And then as soon as he got sick, one of my first thoughts was, “Oh, we should’ve had a kid.” I don’t know how anyone decides to have a kid. That’s, you know, such a big decision. So that seems as reasonable a reason as any.

(READS POEM)

I Thought a Tree Dying

I thought a tree dying was a sign of pestilence or terror or you’d done something wrong in your life and so your tree died. But no, sometimes, like a pet, they just go. Lifespan different than a dog, how unfair is that, you just get your dog for only this little finger of time and then move on. Whose pets are we? If the lifespan of a tree is significantly longer than ours, does that make us its pet? Like in the concentric circle of lifespans, who wins that contest and is that how you decided to make god a thing? Who am I asking all these questions of, my mother? I am the mother now and have to come up with answers like the way one letter from the word “now” to “not” changes everything: your breakfast is now ready, your breakfast is not ready. Why don’t we speak typos. At the level of the letter. It’s when I saw my hand holding the baby’s head I realized I wasn’t the baby anymore.

* * *

I did have this physical realization of the fact of motherhood. It was the first time I was alone with my child. And I’d look at her head, and it’s so tiny, and then I see my own hand, which, suddenly I realize, is an adult hand. And it really looks so feminine, and so motherly. And I had never seen my hand in that way before.

(QUOTING FROM POEM)

It’s when I saw my hand holding the baby’s head I realized I wasn’t the baby anymore.

I am not the child. I am actually the one making the world and defining the world for a child who is asking me, “Why do the leaves look brown?” “Why is that tree dead?” “Why can’t I have sugar cereal?” or (LAUGHS) any of the small and large whys that actually are juxtaposed in rapid fire in the course of any day. When a child asks you questions, do you answer the real answer? Do you have a responsibility to explain what a gun is?

(QUOTING FROM POEM)

Who am I asking all these questions of, my mother? I am the mother now and have to come up with answers like the way one letter from the word “now” to “not” changes everything: your breakfast is now ready, your breakfast is not ready.

There’s kind of an acceptance of not knowing that is built into this poem. As a mother, I don’t have the answers. I certainly don’t have them for myself, for my own life, let alone for someone else.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Katie Klocksin: That was Sandra Doller and her poem “I Thought a Tree Dying.” I’m Katie Klocksin and this is PoetryNow, a production of the Poetry Foundation. For more about this series, go to poetryfoundation.org/poetrynow.