Saturday, November 3, 2012

Barn cleaning today, and also the laundromat, and also helping my son pull together his costume for tonight's Masquerade Ball. He is going as Garage Wizard, which will involve accessories such as an oil-funnel hat, a driveway-reflector staff, and a pine-tree-air-freshener medallion, along with assorted bungee cords, orange extension cords, a tool belt, and a cape. No doubt he will look stunning, but I have doubts that his funnel hat will fit into the car while it's on his head.

This autumn's theatrical debut seems to have given him leave to release his essential public goofiness. On Halloween, he trick-or-treated in Harmony in drag . . . no small feat, let me tell you, in this Bastion of Morality. Yesterday, trapped in a car full of kids, he sang and sang and sang till they started sending him text messages pretending to be residents of distant planets who really, really wanted him to shut up. Paul was unmoved.

It never gets easier, watching children leap off into strangeness and delight, slipping away from us into their own lives.


Night Sledding

for James and Paul

Stealthy as an owl, and more silent,
the trail kneels before us, our mystery.
Now we are the breath of the world,

the moving life.  Our boots skirl
a brave cry.  Around us, vague
snow feathers the black air, a whisper,

a sweet, uncertain kiss.
The trees of the forest tender their bare hands.
And beyond them, the white hill opens,

magic lantern of night.
Shouting, you run forward
and hurl yourselves onto your sleds:

two thumps, the hiss of flight: and you are gone.
A swift weight presses on the earth.
I feel the prickings of fear.

In the pines, a small wind quivers.
The owl shakes out her soft wings.

[from Boy Land & Other Poems, by Dawn Potter (Deerbrook Editions, 2004)]

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