I slip into emerald jello, cooling, but not yet fall.
The grace of summer wings still edging me forward.
Smooth. Rhythmic. Balanced.
I stroke in arm waves from the near shore.
Out into deep unknown parts.
Comforted by the chasm below.
Three days and no breeze to baffle the surface.
Evening, afternoon, morning.
Only my thoughts.
So I may see a reflection of who I am.
Letting go of him. Letting him go.
I hear the wise words I scoffed in my ancient history of mothering.
“Enjoy them while you can
One day they will be gone.”
I thought,
It will never happen to me.
This sense of loss.
Every week for years now they leave
To go to their father’s house.
Every week my nest wrestles in the silence
Of their departing.
And after every week,
They come back to unsettle the silence.
Today, I only wonder.
Did I do good enough?
Will he find his path?
I wonder, when the time is right to call.
Letting him go, not too far into gone
So he feels forgotten, abandoned.
Letting him go
So he finds his wings.
So I swim to the far shore.
Summer wings guiding me
To trust.
Into the calm emerald still of knowing
He, I,
We will make mistakes.
That is how we learn to fly.
the wonder of walden 