PenPenWrites

Some parents say they stand and cheer when the last kid leaves the nest. Some of us get a bit testy. Even weepy. Here's a poem I read recently that brought a huge lump to my throat–and my kids left the nest years ago. It's by Mary Leader and I read it in Garrison Keillor's "Good Poems," a book, fittingly enough, given to me by my daughter to mark my most recent birthday. Here it is:

HER DOOR

There was a time her door was never closed.

Her music box played “Für Elise” in plinks.

Her crib new-bought—I drew her sleeping there.

The little drawing sits beside my chair.

These days, she ornaments her hands with rings.

She’s seventeen. Her door is one I knock.

There was a time I daily brushed her hair

By window light—I bathed her, in the sink

In sunny water, in the kitchen, there.

I’ve bought her several thousand things to wear,

And now this boy buys her silver rings.

He goes inside her room and shuts the door.

Those days, to rock her was a form of prayer.

She’d gaze at me, and blink, and I would sing

Of bees and horses, in the pasture, there.

The drawing sits as still as nap-time air—

Her curled-up hand—that precious line, her cheek…

Next year her door will stand, again, ajar

But she herself will not be living there.