You – who just watched out this same window
Awaiting the moment when your friend would come home from
school
Shoes on, grab your sunhat, no time for snacking –
Spring is calling.
Down the stairs, out the door, running toward the swings.
Cautiously at first, then exuberantly pumping your legs to
the sky
Sunlight gracing your happy face and then back into the
shadows
Sunlight, shade, sunlight, shade you swing
Sunhat dangling from your fingers as you ponder something on
the earth’s floor
Stick in hand –bug-poking tool, magical sword, monster
defender
And now, through the spring’s best grasses
Running, running, friend at your side
Giraffe legs stretching out before you
The world is yours
Freckles faintly appearing, sprinkled across your sunkissed
nose
The same nose I have kissed so many times – goodmorning,
goodnight, I’m sorry
I love you, little girl
Innocent friends frolicking in the fields
Stopping to stoop, collapsing to the ground in wonder at the
skies above
The sky as blue as your eyes, those dancing sparkling eyes
Then up again - running, swinging, hat-dangling
And I watch you from the window.
And my heart swells up to overflowing
Thankful, thankful
Praising the God of green fields and blue skies
Of giraffe legs and sun-kissed noses
Of innocence, exuberance, and wonder.
Spring blossoms in the flowers and it bursts forth in your
tendons as you pedal your tricycle
Faster, faster, smiling, straining.
This is your childhood.
Embrace it.
Drink it in, little one.
Hold onto the fields that know no boundaries
To the innocence that knows no wrongs
And store this spring in your heart, a pocket of sunlight to
return to
When life’s winter blows its harsh wind.
This is your childhood.
Stretch out your legs, run headfirst into the sunshine.
