There will come a day
When you will pause
And wonder at the tightness in your throat
The unexplained tears
At just a simple thing,
a bird,
some bread,
that curve in the road

Then you’ll know:
Your heart, too,
Has become porous in time
And though you were unaware,
All along, it was filling up
Each smile,
A small rebuke,
Kneeling down
(The way you did
To help me with my shoe)
Filling up, until...

The day you cry
at the sound of a robin,
An old blanket,
New growth on the tip of evergreens.
The young deer (I saw this morning).

And you’ll be the old fool with watery eyes,
Who cries at the drop of a hat
Your heart’s awkward overflow
Will reveal it’s inability to hold
All you cherish and have loved
As mine reveals
An old, filled-up heart
That overflows
with love
for you.

I remember that day,
the washing machine in the yard
and the deep blue sky
There may have been a breeze
Me on the grass
and my mother standing there
threading clothes through the ringer,
and bleach

And there must have been a yellow bird
Who, flying by, twittered:
“All the pain you will ever feel,
And fear,
Even standing by the road,
Watching headlights come closer
Despair as each drives by
The heartache of your son struggling  to get the water right
And all the Joy;
a family, singing in the meadow
Of love,
a cotton dress and brown eyes,
Of salvation,
kneeling at the folding chair,
All these were you,
trying to get back,
here...
to this morning,
in the grass
by the washing machine
May
1953”