Prayer from a Fellow Ant

sonnet from Psalm 90:12

Time Always Bites Off More than We Can Chew

Peel back my eyes, Lord; keep me wide awake. 
These babies' running leaps catch in my throat.
They're breathtaking, but I'm stuck here in time,
and crawling slowly through day's scorching face
like an ant racing the desert. What power
of will lets a speck attempt to hoist crumbs 
ten times its size? We tackle lifetimes 
in seconds, ants marching towards the night. 
My mandibles so full, I barely see 
around my load. Tattoo my thorax in facts: 
days, few and short and precious, must be lived
until we reach the river, dark and deep.
Come make our exoskeletons a shield, 
and frame these loved ones in their fleeting days. 

Composition Notes:

Yesterday I ran across an early draft of this poem I had written in 2011, when I had a three-and-a-half-year old and a two-year old and was pregnant with our thirdborn son. I remember feeling like I was so tired I couldn’t adequately describe how often I looked at the clock, longing for the day to be over, longing for sleep. And yet I was equally and acutely aware that these children were growing right in front of me, their preciousness somehow hidden in the mundane. It was all so fleeting, and yet never-ending, and I didn’t want to wish it away. I wanted to live it fully and intentionally, but it felt impossible because you can only live one second at a time, and that meant I had to purpose to be present over and over and over.

I also found a picture yesterday tucked into a recipe book that gave me that stab of nostalgia that feels like grief. Our oldest had drawn it when he was probably five or six and going through a stage when he put hearts on everything, drew big circles for eyes that take up half our faces, and gave us ice-cream cones so large we look like we are brandishing swords. There we are frozen in two-dimensional glory, me with the M on my shirt and him with the J on his. It was a moment in time that felt like it would last forever, and now it is gone. He used to make up songs in the car and put on summer camps for his brothers if I paid him a quarter. Now he sprawls across the entire length of his bed and comes down every morning looking like he has somehow grown out of all his clothes. I don’t grieve the teenage years as a whole because there’s so much to welcome about this stage. I love having extra drivers to share carpool logistics. I love the in-house babysitters. I love watching our boys go to swim team or play tennis or pick up a shift at work. I love the hustle and bustle and agency and all the hilarious conversations. However, even though as a rule I love this stage of parenting, I still find myself stabbed at unexpected moments by how irrevocably a certain season has passed.

This mystery of watching children transform into adults is a gift. It allows us to face our own mortality and value because we get to recognize in our children (or grandchildren or nieces and nephews) that we are always changing and becoming the next version of ourselves. Who do you want to be a year from now? What steps are you taking toward that end? As a poet, I have an unwavering faith in the power of small and surprising things. One line can change your life. One verse can give you a new worldview. One small habit begun today can change the direction of your fitness, your time, your finances, your speech, your diet. So, what kind of life do we want to remember?

I don’t want my kids to remember me hunched over my phone. Since joining Substack in January of this year, I have been on my phone a lot more. I have deleted the app (more than once) and decided I will only check it on a web browser. This is somewhat helpful, but there are still countless opportunities to be absent while physically present. I justify it because usually I am reading, which is something I do all the time anyway, and what is the difference between reading a physical library book and reading a Substack article? I am not sure what the difference is, but the Notes are never ending (as is my stack of library books, my devil’s advocate argues), and I don’t want my children to remember me framed in a screen of blue light. This week I need to pick up my physical Bible to read instead of reading on my app because otherwise they won’t know the difference. Even if I announce, “Reading my Bible now,” they will still have the visual cue of me with the phone in front of my face.

The “Ant Sonnet” written in an entirely different season of my mothering is still relevant to me today, even though I am currently sleeping through the night and the huge lift of the pregnant/newborn stage is just a memory (one I might be tempted to sentimentalize if I didn’t distinctly remember what it felt like for physical exhaustion to be my primary personality trait). We are still eternal creatures stuck in time. We are crawling slowly toward our forever home, and one day we will cross that river and become our true selves. Until that day, it is a moment-by-moment decision to become the person you want your children or your siblings or your spouse or your neighbors to remember. The other day when I woke up, I felt overwhelmed by the day ahead of me. There were too many minutes stretching in front of me with too many opportunities for failure.

“Take this day, Lord,” I begged God. “You own it. You direct it. You give me the strength to live it.” I felt that weight slip off my shoulders and onto His. He is the only one big enough and safe enough to direct the day. He isn’t stuck inside of time like we are, so He can help us play the long game. He can give us the spiritual courage and physical vitality and emotional strength to believe that as we number our days, He will give us a heart of wisdom.