For Gwenyvere's 8th Gr. Graduation

For Gwenyvere, 8th Grade Graduation            June 14, 2012

It was on days like today--
I'd take you out to the sandbox by the shade of the garage
and listen to the wind blow through the trees and write.

I'd watch you bury your Sesame Street characters
until my heart was full and my head was empty--

the sounds of summer breezes moving to a background
of your small high sweet voice
full of sentences, demands, and pretend.

When the ache of longing for summers past would overwhelm--
 I'd pack you up to go see Mema and Aunt Edith.

I'm writing this on the back of a speed warning
and a draft of your valedictorian speech in the car at work--
which sums us up quite well.

Tonight, I'll hear your sweet precise voice giving your speech,
and I'll remember the shade by the garage
and the wind of 13 years ago
when there was just you and me.

I'll remember today's wind and how it felt like a message
from my mother to us both--that she's here in these memories,
in the sound of summer trees, in the points of life
that connect our dots through years and eras and moments of
memory, stillness, and mothers being proud of their daughters
who once, not so long ago, were their babies.