Beautiful Things

In a recent Writing Circle, I offered the prompt, "Write about something beautiful in your life that you have wanted to hold onto but ultimately could not." This is what I wrote in response. What emerged was two brief poems, each about a different aspect of parenting my two beautiful children, Kyle and Ella.

Hero of the Day

Last week she came home from school

Completed paper in hand

The assignment?

To write a letter to someone in her life she called a hero

She could have chosen her soccer coach

A teacher or her very best friend

But instead

She chose me

Essence in Lake Tahoe

On a slow walk

Down a quiet street

In the cool September air

My son

Still in uniform from a soccer match earlier in the day

Now indisputably taller than me

Saunters in between us

Me on the right

His father on the left

In the darkness

We are surrounded by tall Tahoe trees

The mountains at my back

The lake practically before my feet

We are one continuous chain

The original family unit

My daughter

Resting at home with grandmama

Has opted out of this adventure

Designed for her older brother

With this original unit reunited

His essence re-emerges

The usual bantering

Bickering

Vying to be seen

Erased in an instant

I marvel at

his propensity to play endless practical jokes

his willingness to release the bitterness of defeat

his clever wit

his effortless sense of ease

I place my hand on the back

Of his sunburned neck

And to my surprise

He does not recoil

This is my greatest victory of the day.