A POEM DEDICATED TO LADY HOPE

A POEM DEDICATED TO LADY HOPE

 [based on a photo by Barbara Florczyk]

In a heavy rain, you hang out the wash,

then hum a tune you cannot name

nor care to for fear the need to hum it

will leave you.

All sorts of unexpected things like that

while the child that I am hangs in close

at your heels, shadowing you,

eavesdropping on choice bits

of talking to yourself

as though you were your only friend.

But you never see me:

not in the heavy rain

nor in the madness of your senseless chores

nor in the humming,

not anytime you go about your living,

heels ahead, laughing at things

that when I reflect upon them

are funnier than they are when you don't say them.

So, I hang in close, shadowing at your heels,

and holding tightly to Life itself,

your only child.

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