Here is the landscape of my son,
prying open the horizon with his grin;
of my daughter, trying to crack the sun
with her large laughter.
What of the clock that clucks, “No, no, no”?
They’ve flushed it down the commode
with all the toilet-training paraphernalia
until it backs up in the pipes,
bulges beautifully into the hills
that belch so early, “Hello, hello, good morning.”
Of course, we must answer,
must gather up the dew and daffodils
in our nightshirts, comb our hair through
with the larks’ incessant trill,
our two small ones trailing after us
into the wonderfully, brightening world.
—Marjorie Maddox, from Local News from Someplace Else