#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

In the wet woods of December

. . . Vague as fog and looked for like mail.

Farther off than Australia.

Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.

Snug as a bud and at home

Like a sprat in a pickle jug.

A creel of eels, all ripples.

Jumpy as a Mexican bean.

Right, like a well-done sum.

A clean slate, with your own face on.

~ Excerpt from “You’re,” by Sylvia Plath

I hear a baby boy’s cry, early awake; it’s not my son, it’s another special one, and yet my boy/man is nearby, and we have a plan to meet early for his birthday. It has rained and the air is raw the sky is gray and I am happy in the yard waiting for him to emerge and he does and the dogs are with us and we go and greet the river and he is talkative, filling me in, telling me his life, and I have wrapped his surprises, and Suzi comes with us but she is lame pretty soon and when we get to the swamp for her we turn back and it’s just as well, it’s cold! and we go inside, and I get his surprises and the candle and the singing bowl and it’s just the two of us in the quiet house, I have him all to myself and he opens the card, one of my own, and I give him a set of my photo cards, the newest ones, and he loves them, and I give him some candy that he loves and then he opens the special gift, a beautiful piece of art for his own meditation room, a chrome gong etched with a nature scene that he can hang on his wall, and he loves it, and then we meditation with the candle lit and the singing bowl and soon enough go our separate ways for the day and I feel filled up and my instinct is that he does as well. By evening he has texted me a picture of it hanging on his wall.