MOTHERING

Right over there, last month,
we came upon a turkey hen
with her five chicks. She
regarded us, rightly so, as
intruders. This wood was world
to her. We were aliens.
She clucked her innocent
brood across the clearing, herded
them into the brush. All but
one obeyed. He wandered well
away from safety, not knowing
where or when to turn.
We moved on, helpless to help,
knowing better than to try.
Half an hour on, we could still
hear the hen's repeated cry:
    Where did you go?
    Where are you now?
    Come here.

GRANDPA DIVULGES THE SECRET OF WISDOM

I'm not going to tell you
about all the dumb
things I did when I was
your age.

They would embarrass you
to hear them even more
than it would embarrass me to
tell them.

People my age are supposed
to be wise and maybe we are,
at least wiser than we used
to be.

Point is: the way we got to
be wise was doing all those dumb
things we aren't going to tell
you about.

PHOTOGRAPH

The day was hot, sultry,
the lawn large,
the mower loud and clunky.
At the corner of the house
I saw her, our pre-school pixie,
leaping through the waving shower
the sprinkler was bestowing on the grass.
I stopped, went inside for the camera.
Coming up behind her,
I clicked and froze
the moment.

        And now,
here in my hand, she stands,
forever holding her bowed head
over the spray, her eyes closed,
the smile on her face beatific,
the tug on my heart
bittersweet.

TURNIPS

Why? my brother asked when I told
him I was growing turnips.
I didn't have an answer.
It occurs to me now that I haven't
eaten a turnip since . . .
truth is I can't remember.
I think I did once,
or maybe twice, years ago.
But here they are in my garden, their
tops a lovely emerald green,
swaying gently to a melody
the wind is apparently playing.

Maybe I grew them because once,
more than half a century ago,
Danny Frey persuaded me to help
him gather turnips in the corn field.
We took some old buckets, went out,
and pulled them up, mottled
purple bulbs clotted with brown
soil we brushed away.
The wind was that nippy late
October wind that presages
icicles. We filled the buckets,
headed for the barn, the warm.
It's a good memory.

I like turnips because their beauty
is both above ground and below,
seldom seen, rarely praised.
I may not eat my turnips.
Who will know?