Hiding within my son’s clothes,it lay unseen until bedtime whenit scurried out from his sleeve, explaininghis tears through dinner andthe nick on his wrist spottedonly moments before.It was not the night to visit Emergency.Wind and rain buffeted the drive, asunidentified spider in jar beside me,I punctuated my frantic breaths withcomma prayers and apostrophe thoughtsof theContinue reading “You Will Not Fear”
Tag Archives: fatherhood
Evening
Morning
The first day of spring
began with honeysuckle and clover, the constants of the winter yet rendered more redolent by the scents of September and a bee buzzing about a flowering cactus and ended with a downpour that sent me rushing to the clothesline while my son stood in his raincoat and listened to the rain with all things –Continue reading “The first day of spring”
Noah’s Ark: For Eli
I. Delighted by animals, God and rain, my son finds kinship in Noah’s ark, commentating the story as I leaf through his Bible: “Rain! Giraffe. Boat. Noah. Wet. Monkeys!” How to convey what a rainbow’s about, or how I long for him and his brothers to be kept safe in the ark as the floodContinue reading “Noah’s Ark: For Eli”
Sabbath
This afternoon, though I’d planneda much-needed rest, many tasks overtook andsomewhere amidst assembling IKEA furniture I foundthe afternoon gone and dusk charcoaling the sky,so instead I walkedmy toddler to the compost heap and therewe shredded paper scraps to balance the mixand pulled weeds from the side garden whilemy son trialled his latest words and declaredContinue reading “Sabbath”
Learning to ask
Morning Miniature
Miracles of Grass
A devout gardener, my eldest comes out hereeach day, to inspect, to water.Sometimes he waters the concrete, sometimesthe soil. Most of itis sapped up by unseasonal sun,some soaks in. Butas we persist, he and I, we seethis transformation, likea renewing mind: creeper grassstretching outgreen tendrils into a former wastelandand I am mindful to watchthe miracleContinue reading “Miracles of Grass”
Toddler-speed
Only when we are going somewhere does he dawdle, suddenly eager to investigate every fencepost, every garden paver. When we’ve all the world’s time, he hurries, as though life might catch him before he is done, as one learns to do when small and only grown-ups can open doors for you, where moments must beContinue reading “Toddler-speed”
The Consolations of Writing 