Child of Spring

I watch you from the window

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.