Catch and Release

Proud, sad, excited, wistful, full of memories, full of hope, we have said good-bye to college-bound sons. Or we have rejoiced at  weddings and then gone home to wistful ponderings in an empty bedroom.  What a privilege to know someone so well, to have such a vital connection and love, and then to let go. The poem that follows is the fruit and the fall out of a sad and joyful goodbye to a growing up son.

Catch and Release

In the bedroom, one rectangle of light.
One small boy.
A collection of plastic toy fish.
A small, curved finger pointing,

“My aquarium!”

And the fish swam in the
box of air between
screen and pane.

Later,
on a different sort of day,
one rectangle of light.
One small boy, brown head
just visible, eyes twinkling over the sill
as he climbs back into his

second

story

bedroom

window.

Heart leaping like a fish,
careful not to startle him,
she waits.

Small curved fingers grasp sill;
legs appear;
she nets the small, muscular body and slumps
under the weight of her catch.

Still later,
much later,
one rectangle of light.
One tall man,
a collection of boxes and bags,
Straight finger pointing away toward a good life,
upstream,
unpredictable.

She opens the window and
the east sprays morning sun
on memory.

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Photo by Jules Marchioni on Unsplash