Puddle Jumping

A season of novelty:

through mud, purple peaking crocus buds begin

to reveal the lace edges

of their undergarments.

Daffodils unfurl their ragged manes.

Wet dogs strain against leashes

yanking their hooded owners.

Tourists in ponchos hurry

to the safety of porches and awnings.

Cold curtains of rain

billow and shift, pulse strong

then weak again,

petulant as children’s sobs.

For the baby, no longer a baby,

the newness of his two feet

recently transformed to useful objects.

Shoes suddenly have purpose,

ornamental no longer.

He emerges into a new, elevated landscape

with speed, from toddling

to walking, to running,

relishing the abrupt utility of his knees.

Ten toes take on a new meaning.

And now: the fresh world with its puddles.

His screech, a puncture of joy.

The thrill of the splash,

sprinting away from the mother,

out of her orbit

then back again.

He plunges into the slick satisfaction of puddles

alluring as magnets

with their secret black centers.

He leaps into their small abyss

with dank delight, testing their depth,

crouching in that discovered sweet spot—

the deepest part

with rubbery blue galoshes,

a tiny yellow raincoat:

bright blemishes of paint

against a canvas muted by grey and brown.

Flushed pomegranate cheeks

the rest of his skin pale,

newly emerged from the fabric of winter

and from the velvet envelope

of his mother’s body.

Then—squeals of protest,

flailing of limbs

when she grabs his arm

to prevent him plunging into the one

broad as a small pond

as he rushes toward it:

like saving a sailor

from jumping overboard.

Viscosity of spring rain

light breeding whiteness, yeasty dough rising

in the blanched morning. Clouds cough and hunch low.

Frail sunlight strains through the opacity.

Reddish clay mud,

smeared across the world,

clumps along roadsides

in the town square

where cars tires and hooves

crush the manure apples of horses

mixing with water in a soup of sludge.

And for the mother,

the novelty of this new role:

enforcer of rules, protector from injury and illness,

saving him from pain, from those fevered nights.

Her world, once breathtaking,

transformed into a landscape of danger.

Now, a dim and harried vigilance,

her constant shadow companion.

She no longer experiences

the world directly

but gleans it

through a grey haze of angst.

No time to delight in the hour:

to bathe in the wet nostalgia of rain

a drop trickling down her nose

caressing the cheek

flowing down her neck

to settle in the hollow notch, like the trail of a lover’s tongue.

Rain melting the world into dream

the blurring of air with water

sky pressing down

in its desire.

Now, her cold wrists

grip metal umbrella handles,

wet palms clench into granite rocks.

The two of them:

circling, circling,

running, not toward any goal, any destination

but woman in pursuit of aimless child

trailing his delirious, zigzagging trajectory

nonsensical as a madman.

She: devoted tracker,

assistant to this miniature monarch

to his whims and moods.

Back and forth, back and forth

in and out of puddles

as time pours down on pavement

as girlhood fades to motherhood

as the wet bliss of spring

courses through a new generation

getting nowhere

but keeping him alive,

keeping his small body dry

from the rain.