by: d. heidel

Let me see you now, the one in the middle.  Let me see you with my fingers on your cheeks (my eyes are too old to feel the light that comes from your shining face).  Come forward and let me come to you, hobbling on my own withering knees.  This makes me smile!  This coming-together, this communion.  You laugh so easily!  And you cry, too, when you feel like crying.  There is music in the trees around us and, too, in the shadows of your room when I tuck you into bed.  Can you hear it?  (I could not when I was your age, but then, too, I did not know the wisdom of the child’s ears when I was your age.  Maybe you know that wisdom.  Your eyes shine as if you did know.)  Let me see you with your skinny arms and knobby knees and—and—.  And the moment has passed us by.  And now I see where you had been standing, that air blessed with the fragrance of your sweat, that space that is now empty of you as you have run off to the thing that you know needs your fingers and your imagination.  Let me see that space where you had been standing.  There is music, too, in that space alone.