Holding on to Beauty

It had been a drag-ass day at the law firm,

But it was Friday; the hang up your coat,
Kick back for the weekend goal day.
The baby-sitter had left supper in the oven.
It was time to look in on her five year old son
And invite him to sit down and dine with her.

 When she opened up the door to his room

She gazed upon a world in bloom.

 “Maria helped me gather them,” he boasted proudly,

“But it was all my idea.  I’m gonna have
The most beautiful room in the whole world.”

 Black-eyed Susans peered up from a teddy bear’s lap,

Daisies were arrayed in neat rows on the floor,
Buttercups filled the bed of a red Tonka truck,
With more in his toy box, some taped to the door.
Blue coneflowers waved from an open drawer;
He’d placed wood sorrel on the windowsill.
Atop the desk he liked to sit and read in
Were wild lupine, plucked from a nearby hill.
St. Anne’s lace huddled with wild geranium;
He’d gathered dandelions and didn’t think it odd
To mate them with harebell in another pile, just as
Sweet William from the meadow lay with goldenrod.

 “I would have picked some of your roses, too, Mom,

But Maria wouldn’t let me touch them.”

 “Your room is very beautiful,” his mother agreed,

Thinking to herself of the terrible mess
Of wilted leaves, brittle stems and dropped petals
That Maria would soon have to clean up.

 Indeed, by Sunday evening the leaves had wilted,

The flowers, their colors already less vibrant,
Were petulantly weeping their petals.
The young boy was disconsolate with grief.

 “My flowers are dying,” he tearfully sobbed.

“I’d wanted them to stay with me all winter.”

 His mother put her arms around him

Protectively, wishing that she could shield him
From all the hurt that he’d ever encounter in life.
She wished that she knew how to frame her words
To reach out to console him, to touch him now,
Before his awestruck wonder pales to blasé;
Before the poety of flowers  no longer moves him.

 “When Spring parades its colors,” she finally began,

“Everything’s lovely.  But beauty that’s living
Will always fade.  You can’t grab hold of it
To save it in a cupboard for a rainy day.”

 The young boy smiled weakly through his tears

As he hugged his mother and assured her,
“You’re a living thing, mom, and no matter what,
You’ll always be beautiful to me.”

 The young mother began to tear up herself,

Thinking of the man who had praised her beauty,
The man who had vowed to never leave her.

 He did.

 She knew that her boy would someday leave her

As well, as all sons will do.
They leave the nest in search of a life,
Then a mother’s primacy is replaced by a wife.
It is just the natural progression of things,
As certain as wilting flowers, and death.

 “I love you so much, Ethan,” she whispered,

As she locked him in a possessive embrace;
Wanting at this moment to never let him go,
Wanting so to hold him close to her

 As long as she possibly can.

 

                       Rich Hanson