Tableau at Twilight

I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.

A parent is easily beguiled
By sight of this coniferous child.

The friendly embers warmer gleam,
The cone begins to drip ice cream.

Cones are composed of many a vitamin.
My lap is not the place to bitamin.

Although my rainment is not chinchilla,
I flinch to see it become vanilla

Coniferous child, when vanilla melts
I'd rather it melted somewhere else.

Exit child with remains of cone,
I sit in the dusk, I am all alone,

Muttering spells like an angry Druid.
Alone in the dusk, with the cleaning fluid.

Ogden Nash



A Promise to My Children

I promise to prize your friendship and the love of your children above
any household item they may (ahem) spoil.

I promise to never present you as
"one of MY (put tally number here) children/grandchildren"
as though you were a notch on my belt,
but rather to treat you as unique and interesting people
with your own stories to tell.

I promise to always love our adorable Nikki, our cholo David,
and Mai (who makes Mark so happy) and anyone else who enters our family circle,
or indeed even touches it.
I will never ask them to "step out of the photo" because it is "just the family"
I intend for our family to also include such dearly loved people
as Sonia, Grandma Maruja, and Jhonathan, on into the eternities.

I promise to never begin a conversation with
"well I am 70 years old" (or whatever)
and suppose that will trump your expertise.
I promise to not stubbornly repeat
some old fact from my college days, but rather
inform myself and ask intelligent questions.

I promise to do my best, to keep in touch, whatever the cost.
To hear of your emergency room visits,
report card brags,
your work events,
And NEVER say "I'm sorry I gotta go to the library now."

I have realized that my dearest wish,
is to hear you tell me about the world;
and to do that you must:
sit on counters,
sideswipe cars,
forget and remember things,
give me a cold,
and lose my tweezers

I realize that sometimes you will
sleep when I am awake,
and be wakeful at late hours of the night.
I promise, on those occasions,
to never sweep out in a queenly snit
and remind you that my sleep is precious.
Because it isn't
at least not in the sense that you are.

Love from your mum