You know how to make breakfast, and lunch. Some days you keep the laundry cycling through washer and dryer until there is a mountain on the couch for me to fold. Warm, wafting fresh, as I snap sheets and towels, and put order to chaos. You teach the other children everything you know - how to read, how to play the violin, how to make more mud in the spring. When you were a babe, I did nothing but pour, pour, pour to fill you up with my love and all the things I loved and wanted you to as well. We went everywhere together...bed, showers, everywhere I went around town, I carried you on my hip. People smiled at us, and you smiled back, with your eyes that look like half moons squinted almost shut.
Some days now, I miss you. You know so much already. You're growing independent. It feels a little risky, this grafting of you into the cool spring earth of 8-almost-9 years old. Are you full enough yet? Have you memorized this connection between the trunk and the branch, the mama and the girl? I long for the in-between, to let you warm your toes in the earth but keep you growing hugged to my chest. I don't want to set out you as an empty cup for rain. Father, fill her over till her cup runs beyond the brim, spilling your gold on the ground around her.
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| Writing on Lisa-Jo's prompt, "Empty" |
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