Dear Hildegaard
Cheese sticks, Thoreau, and wonder
Dear Hildegaard,
Lime popsicles, cottontail rabbits,
fallen mulberries, and rain boots.
Outside, where I used to have a plastic
garden owl to ward off raccoons and
birds from my melons now sits: nothing.
Because you took it inside and pretended
to feed it a stick of cheese. I write this
poem while you flutter around the room
like a woodland fairy, blooming with
imagination. You make your pink horse
ride a yellow bus and hug your stuffed
bear like he is your best friend. Because,
well, he is. Is this what Thoreau meant
when he decided to live deep and suck out
all the marrow of life? Supposedly he was
just eating cherry pies on Emerson’s land
but isn’t that living deep? Isn’t that soaking
up the good of life? We adults have forgotten
too many things. We have seen the worst and
now the worst is all we can see. Too many
other shoes have dropped and there are ghosts
living in our attics. But if we would just pause
for a moment to watch a toddler, like you, hold
a crayon in your fist as if it were a magic wand,
or eat a chocolate ice cream cone, exclaiming:
YeeeUUMMmmm, after every single lick, we
might remember more than just the disasters
and torrents, and maybe, just maybe our banks
would be flooded, once again, with wonder.
Beautiful!