July 10

Love at eight

A horrid little brat for days,
all spit and sass,
tripping your brother,
a note from your teacher,
you even called me fool.

Next morning you dressed
and redressed three times,
splashed on your father’s aftershave,
tucked a wallet in your pocket.
When you opened your notebook,
a page of red and turquoise hearts
and stars spilled out–
I thought for me–
until I saw Cora Cora Cora
in your neatest hand.
Love! Why hadn’t I thought of that?

I was just your age when Jeffrey John Jasper
showed me how to play wild horses:
if the cowboys caught us
they got to corral us.
I outran all the boys until
the day I figured it out.
Valentine’s Day Jeffrey gave me
a one-dollar card that said love.
I kept secret until recess,
when two girls showed me
identical cards signed JJJ.

You tilt your head at the mirror,
and homilies swarm to my mind.
I wave them and the waft
of English Leather away and say,
Mmm, don’t you smell nice.

“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”^*

Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.

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