Outside

 

Memories! How we cherish the good ones, make them forever ours, polish them, enhance them, store them away, pull them out to comfort us in our old age.

Such is this memory of our grandson, now becoming a young man, but barely a toddler then.

How proud I felt, watching him go to that window, pointing and pronouncing that word with all the authority he could muster: "Outside!"

I just had to write a poem about it. I know ... I know ... it would embarrass the life out of him, if he were to find out that I had posted it here.

You won't tell, will you? Promise? Then here it is:

 

OUTSIDE!

"Outside!" he says,

tiny finger folding

as it touches the glass

of our dining room

window. "Outside!"

 

It carries the tone

of discovery, that ancient

"Eureka!" still echoing,

an air of possession.

 

He runs repeatedly

to the window, pointing

and exclaiming, savoring

this, another horizon

beckoning, a romance

budding, perhaps growing

until he's my age

and beyond, this love

of the outside world.

© 1999

(originally published in Capper's)

                              ***

Today's word: beckoning

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, Westofthere. I'm glad you like the photo. The tree stopped me in my tracks on one of my walks, made me back up a few steps and capture it with my camera. I almost said "capture it on film" ... and for many years that's the way I did my capturing, on cut film, roll film ... always film. But now I've joined the digital age. I miss film, but I like being able to see, right away, what I've "captured."