For My Daughter
Yesterday, on the Common, before the hailstorm, you run ahead, and your mother and I walk hand-in-hand behind. "There must be hundreds" you say, marvelling at the black mass of tadpoles in the pond. Two weeks ago, they were just eggs in jellied strings, remember? We looked at them through the lens and wondered when they'd hatch. Now they (thousands - it's not a word you use yet) swim away when we splash through. Dry in our wellies, as long as we don't go too deep - that crack in the top of yours would let the water through, long before I'd notice. Time to start wearing the new ones (black, like ours), that looked so oversize, only two months ago.
You really must stop shooting up so - or is that one of those bad Daddy Wishes? I don't know, you won't be young forever, and I love this too much to let it go easily - chasing you over the Common, pointing out new purple flowers, taking pictures of you walking along the fallen pines, like God pushed them over just to give you a balance-beam. You climb so well, Little Monkey, and right now, you're so high, over my head and I don't know if I can catch you if you slip. But then you turn and slide down into your mother's arms. I should have captured that.
Instead, we look at the wreckage, and I tell you how these two trees fell down together because their roots were so enmeshed. You seem more interested in the possibilities inherent in the hole left behind. "A Bear Cave!" We chew the stalks of suuring together, you and I, while your mom makes a disgusted face. Sour, but we like that. Then you race off down the soggy path, past a riot of flowers and through the heather - first person to find a mushroom in the woods is the Mushroom King. Or Princess...
You always choose the wrong path - the right-hand one that goes by the edge, when here, the left-hand one, see! It goes deeper into the pines. There are tiny mushrooms, ("Hundreds!"), umber caps swollen with new rains. And there, a toadstool like the one we saw last week. Amanita muscara, white-spotted redcap rising from the needle bed like a storybook goblin. Poison, don't touch it! Leave it for the Trolls, in lieu of your smelly socks, which I've half-convinced you they love to steal. Or at least, convinced you to put on a good show of humouring me.
Sit here on my knee and listen to the frogs. Some are rain frogs and some are Arum frogs - every frog has its own song. Look, a falcon! And something small in its talons. Poor mouse.
Squirrels in the pines
Scolding as Death flies overhead -
Defiance in the rain.
You really must stop shooting up so - or is that one of those bad Daddy Wishes? I don't know, you won't be young forever, and I love this too much to let it go easily - chasing you over the Common, pointing out new purple flowers, taking pictures of you walking along the fallen pines, like God pushed them over just to give you a balance-beam. You climb so well, Little Monkey, and right now, you're so high, over my head and I don't know if I can catch you if you slip. But then you turn and slide down into your mother's arms. I should have captured that.
Instead, we look at the wreckage, and I tell you how these two trees fell down together because their roots were so enmeshed. You seem more interested in the possibilities inherent in the hole left behind. "A Bear Cave!" We chew the stalks of suuring together, you and I, while your mom makes a disgusted face. Sour, but we like that. Then you race off down the soggy path, past a riot of flowers and through the heather - first person to find a mushroom in the woods is the Mushroom King. Or Princess...
You always choose the wrong path - the right-hand one that goes by the edge, when here, the left-hand one, see! It goes deeper into the pines. There are tiny mushrooms, ("Hundreds!"), umber caps swollen with new rains. And there, a toadstool like the one we saw last week. Amanita muscara, white-spotted redcap rising from the needle bed like a storybook goblin. Poison, don't touch it! Leave it for the Trolls, in lieu of your smelly socks, which I've half-convinced you they love to steal. Or at least, convinced you to put on a good show of humouring me.
Sit here on my knee and listen to the frogs. Some are rain frogs and some are Arum frogs - every frog has its own song. Look, a falcon! And something small in its talons. Poor mouse.
Squirrels in the pines
Scolding as Death flies overhead -
Defiance in the rain.