My emotions do not dance above my head,
instead they flutter inside my chest, at my center.
I press a hand against my ribs,
to keep the worries from breaking through.

This is where my children live,
near where Mary pressed Jesus to her bosom,
and women everywhere beckon benevolent spirits
to protect their precious young.

There too the heart pumps its stream of reddish gold...
open... shut... holding... folding,
dutiful servant, always alert,
standing sentry over its charges.

In the late afternoon
the shadows are longest
and they trail behind me like regrets,
mournful and dark,
shackled to my ankles,
pulling me back to my past.

Then morning comes
and I fix my gaze
on the tendrils of the sun
illuminating the ruts
in the long road ahead,
away from bondage
toward possibility and hope.

The higher a child climbs
the greater the need for a safety net.
From tiny feet marks
to large footprints,
from breast to bottle,
preschool tears to college woes,
the parental umbilicus stretches
until one day the cord falls away
and balancing high above, the net ignored,
the child beams a confident smile
to the parents who exhale
with relief and admiration,
-- and a hint of nostalgia.

Our memories are in the weave,
ragged bits of cloth threaded around wispy twigs,
scattered leaves and tattered down furnish the padding.
A lot of refurbishing needed after the ravages of winter,
plugging a hole here, mending unraveled bedding there.

Love is in the fabric,
when first your breath blew back my hair,
chirping baby lips were my music,
and a daughter's tender fingers grazed my cheeks.

Near perfection is in the tending.
As the wind whistles around our little abode
we huddle feather to feather,
knotting more memories
into our tangled nest of moments.

Outside his window the snowflakes descend light as dust,
slowly falling through endless distance.
The old man rocks rhythmically,
curled up in a comforter like an hibernating animal.
His gaze glides over the glacier-blue scenery below.
Wasn't it just yesterday
that he shoveled icy masses waist-high
into drifts along the driveway.
Now he muses as a blue-jay lands on the lard ring
studded with sunflower seeds,
and a tiny sparrow dashes to the wooden feeder
swinging from an adjacent tree branch.
The old man reposes in silence
knowing that in another season
someone will push his chair closer to the window
so he can observe the rebirth of a flowering earth.

Years ago as a little boy on a chilly morning
he dashed in his pajamas to his bedroom window
and pressing his hands and nose against the frosted glass
his breath steamed a peek hole onto a magical world,
silvery under the early light.
It had snowed and the garden, deep in winter sleep,
was as unblemished as his young life.
Then a rabbit scurried from under a frost-sugared bush
and left paw prints on the white ground.
In his excitement the boy wanted nothing more
than to run after the wild little creature.
In a voice a trifle too high and with trembling nostrils he called to his mother,
"Let's go down. I want to touch."

The boy grew up
and words erupted in his all-consuming world.
Now the coltishness of youth long gone,
movements have slowed,
and the wordless watch through the window
replaces his impatient exuberance
with calm, aged admiration
as a cardinal flits by,
the evening sun red on its underwings.