Observations are a very good place to start…NaPoWriMo #36

I had nothing in my head tonight to write about, so I looked around my office and just started typing. It is half way a blog post and half way a poem. Grrr...now past midnight tweaking pictures even though this is my April 28th poem.

 My Son’s Present Art

Little drawings from little hands litter my office

They are time capsules that help me escape the rocket fueled present

That launches from the now into the space unknown to planet future

A pastel flower garden where the flowers all look like small suns

Was given as a first present on a Mother’s Day

My boy had always loved to give me flowers

Many hours that year we had spent planting and digging

He beamed with such pride to give me something

He had painted and knew I would love

A fiery furnace of an exciting Sunday School lesson

Is scribbled and so earnest on my cabinet door

I remember the flood of detail my boy tried to tell me

The words he could get out were about the fire and the angel

If there was no picture, I wouldn’t have understood his story

I looked at it with him and we went through it together

Finger painted hand prints from a desperate summer’s day

We were rained inside scratching for something more to do

My son didn’t want to do anything, but he let me take his hand

and put it in the paint then to the paper

He smiled, but wouldn’t do it on his own

He would hold his hand hovering there

Daring me to take it and place it just so

A computer printed, but hand drawn birthday card

That is a portrait of me with a Hershey’s kiss floating nearby

He presented it with a kiss and hug

So proud he and his father had kept this surprise a secret

They had pulled it off and then the next year I wanted a card,

But was told by my son, “no”

This helps me to know to not expect,

But to wait for what he truly wants to give

A coffee can decorated with shaky interpretations

Of butterflies and bees now houses a yellow miniature rose

We planted a sunflower in it that year you gave it to me

And that flower quickly outgrew our humble can

We planted it in the garden

Where it bloomed most of the summer that year

And now we include a few tall sunflowers every year

A tissue paper heart window that clearly

Someone else helped those little hands make

I found it shoved in his backpack and smiled

No presentation to me, nothing special

Just a memento of the season

But a heart with my son’s name had to go on my wall

As he has my heart in so many ways

The paper sack frog that hangs on the mantle

Is so faded from enduring at least three years now

I go to take it down and I can’t

There is something that leaps to my throat

When I touch that darned pop eyed faded frog

That he never played with

and I’m sure someone else cut out

as his scissor skills are shaky still

it is something about it

holding out it’s little hands

wanting to embrace everyone

that warms me to see

wondering if someday he

could leap forward

and run at life

like this little frog

there are signs

and simple maps

that bear his hand too

all pointing at what he is

and can be

this is his art

this is his heart

this is a great start