two poems about children

the girl smiled a proud smile,
looked up at her mother
and announced:
"i'm going to dance all the way to the door."

and she did.
with hops and half twirls,
turning her way to the place
where her mother took her
by the hand,
leading her onto
sidewalk, chicago winter.


- - -


casual, with unthinking tenderness,
the mother's hand moves across
the head of the six-year old boy
at her side
gently running her fingers through his
fine, light hair:
messing it up,
smoothing it down again.

movement unremarked and unremembered
product of no chain of reasoning,
equally unnoticed by actor and acted upon
as both stare ahead
pondering ice-cream choices.

an unconsidered gesture,
holding what is purest and deepest and best
in human life.

the big 1-0-0-0-0 (the personal holiday of the future!)

yesterday was a major milestone for me -my 10,000th day (ex utero). which i guess makes me 40 minutes old in god years.

we had a party on the evening of day 9,999 and we rang in day 10,000 with champagne and sparklers at the stroke of midnight.

i was thankful to be able to celebrate with good friends, and also to get so many good wishes from friends who couldn't make it to the party.

perhaps best of all, a friend composed a wonderful poem for the occasion.

if you're interested in celebrating your own 10,000th day (or 15,000th, or 20,000th, etc) a google search will quickly turn up some day calculators, which will save you time figuring out the leap years.

a few pics from the party: