The Swing of Things

    I committed the cardinal sin of posting this poem on Facebook before I took the time to polish it up. At the time I thought it unpolishable, which is good enough for Facebook, but I won't post it here until I have given it time to brew in my brain . . . Oookay, it's two days later and my brain fluid still hasn't steeped, so I guess I will just fill in context. I sat on our deck on one of those warm pre-spring days last week, and thought how much better the backyard looked with a swing set in it. There were no riders on it at the time, and yet it was full of happy memories, and the promise of more to come.

 

The Swing of Things 

When we moved here,

we had no swing set,

gladly rid of toys that took up

so much room in the yard.

We put away childish things

so to speak, some anyway.

Our children had outgrown

such simple entertainment.

 

And now, two decades later,

there is a swing set in the yard.

One of many childish things--

beloved toys for our grandkids.

What we needed was not

more room in the yard, it was perspective

to see what was missing

and get back in the swing of things.

3/18/21