gift

you are small. full of light.
having a seriousness bigger

than a 3-year-old
but an openness that is ever responding
wonder-fully to life.
you are strong, built like your father,
with a gentle spirit,
and a jig in your step, like your mother.
you still have that reservation
i remember from the season i took care of you:
turning from strange voices and too many faces.
and i, ha, also was only too eager
to exchange formalities for that greater wisdom
of love, simplicity, fun, and courageous vulnerability
that you, and every child, keep teaching me.
you speak much more clearly and intelligently
than you did back then.
but...i can't help but be playful,
leaving "education" for a moment, to the wind.
today we laughed, shaking randrops from branches
that splashed on our clothes and faces.
somehow this brief time
profoundly renewed my heart:
a spring watering dry places.