Stepping into my children’s room
it is nine years ago and I almost trip over
the rocking chair that isn’t there,
can almost smell the calendula cream
I used for their bottoms, hear
the drone of the humidifier.
How different those quiet nights,
the amber glow of the night light,
the way their new bodies curled
so easily into the curve of my arm.
Not that I want to go back to those nights,
but how sweet they are now, how long
they were then. I want to tell that younger
version of myself that there will come
a day when she will wish she could
sit in the quiet and hold her children
through the night. But she wouldn’t believe me.
Too tired for belief. She just keeps
humming that lullaby, rocking back
and forth, her eyes closed as if to dream.
Dear friends, I’ll be camping the next few days, so no poems posted for a while … a bouquet when I return. xo
r