I recall how dad gave me glass vials
and encouraged me to go to the lake, take samples,
then bring them back to the house
where he’d taught me to use a glass dropper
to put a small bead between slide and slip,
then focus the microscope
to spy on all the life pulsing there—
thin oblong shapes and zooming dots,
spinning green circles and segmented strands—
it was like eavesdropping on adult conversation,
like being given the key to enter life itself,
and I, an eager traveler into invisible realms,
spent hours staring into that intricate world.
Memory is, sometimes, a chance to meet
a drop of the past, then wonder about the world
beyond what we first see. I thought this
was a memory about lake water, glass slides,
a microscope. I look closer. I see trust.
Pulsing love. A father teaching curiosity.