a thousand winters for this

A thousand winters
for this:
white spray
against blue sound
and my babies
giggling
into the wind,
save one
warm on my chest.

If I saw the scene
in a painting --
our little boat
under sapphire skies,
ferries with fresh paint
and the mountains ringed
in cloudy crowns --

Contrived, I might say,
or sentimental.

But here now,
real:
I would live
a thousand winters
for this summer.

I love a baby

I love a baby
for all she doesn't know:
for sweet ignorance,
for the fresh start,
for a thousand mistakes
I haven't made
yet.
I love a baby
for all she doesn't do:
feet that don't run,
arms that don't fold,
lips that don't speak a word
yet.
I love a baby
for all she doesn't need:
no hard decisions
and no discipline,
no tests or therapies,
no parent-teacher conferences
yet.
Oh! how I love a baby.

my hero

At the dinner table
he is telling the older
boys a parable
about parables
and he has their eyes
wide as saucers.
I can only make out
every other word because
His Pint-Sized Majesty
the Third has used
all his chances to eat
nicely and moved on to
screaming in my ear.
I try not to sigh and
scoop the screecher off
to bed, but steal a
look back as I go:
two little men
and my hero, spinning
the kingdom of God
into a tale of mustard
seeds and dinosaurs
and pirates.

grief relapse

I cried for Grampy again today, and then for Grammy too.

I read about someone's grandpa falling and breaking his hip; the writer was wondering how to bathe her little boys with their freshly-made bodies, while her grandfather lay in the hospital, broken and in pain. How to live without forgetting one in the presence of the other. I don't know.

Here I am in a noisy house tripping over these small, perfect people. Kissing my husband in the kitchen while I stir the food on the stove like its nothing. Forgetting.

But can we even remember without collapsing under the weight of it? I maxed out at five minutes, took a shuddery breath, ate a piece of chocolate and went on with my life. Why can I do that?

Because today I'm not listening to the clock tick off the seconds, wondering if they bring me closer to or further away from the part of me that is buried on a hilltop across town.