Presleigh

Presleigh likes to ride her scooter on the patio.

She throws the squeaky 

ball for the dog,

and squeals when he brings it back.  

 

And Presleigh turns summersaults on the grass. 

She calls them "flip flops." 

 

She runs to me, a rock in each hand.

"This one looks like space!" she shows me. 

"And this one is a heart." 

She stashes them in her bib pocket 

just like her father used to.   

 

He filled my house with rocks. 

If I wasn't careful

I would step on jagged ones

with bare feet. 

 

He would stack them on tables.

The vacuum would find them

under the sofa and the beds.  

 

He brought me fistfuls

of the most ordinary looking rocks.

He would explain why each of 

them was beautiful.

I loved seeing the world through 

his eyes.   

 

When he outgrew rocks 

I turned his collection into a rock garden.  

Now, his daughter has his same eyes

and finds beauty in

the same rocks her father loved.   

 

At dusk Presleigh's father lights the firepit 

so she can "burn marshmallows." 

Logs crackle and pop.

Presleigh calls the embers 

"glow in the dark bees."   

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I promised to write something happier for this time.

The picture was taken on Thanksgiving. 

Presleigh will be four years old in January.