For a long time, I had a food/motherhood/poignant life moments blog called In Praise of Leftovers, and it pretty much turned into a poetry blog. I closed that down in January after more a dozen years (!!), so that means there will be some poetry here. I can’t help it.
This week, it’s about my amazing 19 year-old son who’s away for his first year of college. We were able to visit him last week, and I’m in love all over again. I have fallen in love with him and my 15 year-old daughter so many times–watching them play basketball, making pancakes for them on a Saturday morning, watching the evening light fall over them as they do the dishes. To be in relationship with them is the biggest honor and greatest joy of my life. Sometimes I think we talk about how hard motherhood is because if we really talked about the joy of it, it might annoy people. Interminable delight. We might get laughed out of the room if we were honest about the tsunami of feeling that comes with it. I hope you feel that in this little poem.
Interminable Delight
We share a vacation rental.
He’s happy for a break from dorm life,
doing dishes after breakfast
while I pack.
I’m not one for long poems
or long anything, really.
I’m ready for the book,
project, movie, season
to give way to the next,
get to the point.
Big exception—
Right now. This.
Water filling the sink,
a few bits of egg
clinging to the skillet.
The vintage shirt he found
in town yesterday, his pants
scuffed from skateboarding,
phone on low battery
like usual.
Please, this forever—
his whistling and singing
never ending,
never getting to the point,
his sweet existence
always the whole, extravagant point
of it all.