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Don’t Take a Walk in the Woods with Your Grandson

when he’s 5, he’ll probably ask to take your hand and then
look up into your towering eyes to say, Someday
I’m going to be as big as you. And you’ll briefly nod and say
That’s right. But as he lets the idea roll around inside his spacious
self, the mystery will get whipped up in there & prompt him to ask,
Does it seem like it to you? And you, in your somnambulant
grown-up way, will think you’re experienced in this sort of thing.
You’ll say, Well, yes. It does kinda seem like that to me…
But you will grow to regret the little white lie of it even before
the walk is over, for a certain wonder will have caught in you—
a small fire that will be impossible to put out. Time after time
your grandson will appear in a new form, almost daily.
He will grow bit by unlikely bit until he’s gloriously two heads
above you. And it will never seem like it could have happened.
Not even once.

—
Prartho Sereno is the author of five prize-winning poetry collections, including Indian Rope Trick (Blue Light Book Award, 2018) and most recently Starfall in the Temple. Poet Laureate Emerita of Marin County, CA, she taught poem-making to children in grades K through 12 as a California Poet in the Schools for over 21 years and currently teaches “The Poetic Pilgrimage: Poem-Making as Spiritual Practice” online.

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