Sharing something from my amazingly adept at poetic endeavors son-in-law to the Grandbabies on their first birthday, which always and forever happens to be today.
– on yr first birthday
by Aaron Balkan
One of you lives for red meat.
One of you favors cheese of the goat.
I know who.
I remember the football hold. I remember the little
sour faces you made when the bottle was too cold.
Sorry about that. I remember three out of five of the S’s:
Swaddling, Shushing and Swinging. I remember how we used to
swing each of you, pendulum-like, toward each other, and how,
instead of slamming into your sis in mid air,
you both cackled: G with her chuckle gone berserk,
J, who certainly doesn’t require aviating the air via her father’s arms to go berserk,
going bezerk.
Let me tell you something about Michigan. Yes it’s where
so and so happened. The record shall reflect. But it’s also
where you first took to water. Josie, you were running wind sprints across the shallow;
Georgia, you liked to saddle up a floating sugar maple branch
and stare at it, pick it up, hold it to the light, chew. You both appreciated
the taste of pond water, the fetid-
er the better!
I have a picture of that summer. There’s a thunderstorm going on outside
a picture window. Georgia you’re standing on a couch, your hands
pressed to the glass. You are smiling, but your mouth is wide open,
so it’s like you’re both smiling and trying to swallow the landscape. Josie,
you are sitting on the floor staring at Georgia. You, too, have your mouth agape.
It appears you want to swallow your sister.
Here’s what happened:
I went to see Dylan.
He played This Wheel’s on Fire
for his opening number. The next night
you were born.
sour faces you made when the bottle was too cold.
Sorry about that. I remember three out of five of the S’s:
Swaddling, Shushing and Swinging. I remember how we used to
swing each of you, pendulum-like, toward each other, and how,
instead of slamming into your sis in mid air,
you both cackled: G with her chuckle gone berserk,
J, who certainly doesn’t require aviating the air via her father’s arms to go berserk,
going bezerk.
so and so happened. The record shall reflect. But it’s also
where you first took to water. Josie, you were running wind sprints across the shallow;
Georgia, you liked to saddle up a floating sugar maple branch
and stare at it, pick it up, hold it to the light, chew. You both appreciated
the taste of pond water, the fetid-
er the better!
I went to see Dylan.
He played This Wheel’s on Fire
for his opening number. The next night
you were born.
Here they are trough diving. Bean is stealing Josie’s fallen fruit from the bib trough.
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