for Sarah, Lou and Isabelle

                        1

She is as tuned to her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter
as a professional musician is to her violin.
Her soft notes, the same sounds more urgent,
knowing each meaning for her child’s cacophony of cries.
This mother doesn’t even gaze at the music;
her heart knows the parent-child score.
Now there’s a twenty-nine week old boy on the way
who’s the length and weight of a butternut squash
but I prefer the days when his size was referred to
as A raspberry, A small lime, A peach.
When this baby is born,
he will lose his fruit and vegetable status,
become William, Pablo, Amari, Tzi,
inscribed in the Book of Life.

                        2
As my granddaughter leaves the bathroom
on her father’s shoulders, she sings:
You’re a good man, Daddy,
sending this man to the moon.                       

                        3
Hello to the Isabelle fairies:   
the cuddle fairy,
the GOT IT! independence day fairy,
the full moon fairy who wants what she wants,
the wisdom fairy who paints like life
up and down, up and down,
the compassionate fairy who nurses Elmo’s boo-boos,
the mischief fairy twirling ?til she’s Izzy dizzy to avoid bedtime,
the sky blue scribble fairy, the color of creativity,
the divine giggle fairy,
the wonder fairy who stuns us.

© by Jean Colonomos.
Used with the author’s permission.