Do You Remember?
Posted: February 13th, 2021, 11:29 am
(for my daughter, now a landscape architect on the West Coast)
Do you remember
that time we were walking the rail-trail
when a baby porcupine tagged along
before disappearing into the woods?
How delighted and enthralled you were?
How about the first frog you ever caught?
How you did it exactly as I'd shown you:
you squatted down beside it
and slowly reached out
s l o w l y
andthensuddenlygrabbed
and how you couldn't believe you'd caught it
and screamed in surprise
and tossed it back in...
Or those afternoons at Laurel Lake -
We'd swim out to Turtle
(the submerged boulder with the footrest)
before heading out to Table
where we'd each find a big stone
to weigh us down
so we could walk on the bottom...
But I doubt you remember
that particular winter evening
I picked you up at my mother's after work
and you played the game you always did:
to get into the car
before the cattle in the barn across the way
began bawling their entreaties
for the milking crew to hurry...
and once their bellows echoed off the hills
you said
"Hurry, Dad! The cows are getting mooey!"
So, playing along, I said
"Well, we'd better get going then!"
and strapped you into your car seat
before following your gaze up to the moon
a thin sliver hanging overhead
painting the empty cornfield
and the Vermont hills across the river
with a pale blue light
a fingernail moon, my dad had called it
so I said
dreamily
"Looks kind of like a fingernail"
and you said
hesitantly
as if unsure you'd caught my meaning
"Kind of like... banana"
...
A small moment to be sure
your first metaphor
(well, a simile actually)
I doubt you remember...
but I do
and always will
(Ed, Steve - thanks for the inspiration)