poetry fix: a note to shel silverstein

 

 

 

 

You made me the other woman before I was born.

When the boy carved my initials above M.E. and T.,

I became the one who lured him away

from raucous swinging and naps in her shade.

 

Soon other distractions

made it difficult for him to remember

the way light filtered through her leaves

or how sometimes not talking

is the best way to say everything.

 

Of course, you had the boy find his way back to her

after the apples and the branches and that solid canoe.

By then, he was worn out from

trying to fill the cavernous space

he refused to name but couldn’t ignore.

 

I knew someday

you’d make him long for sturdy and true . . .

return him to her before he ran out of wonder,

exhausted from chasing after the boy he used to be.

                                – by Yvonne Melania Lieblein