Barbara and I walked in the park after dark, hand in hand. The gravel paths shimmered from the moon, and the moon’s twin floated in the flat creek. The voices of other walkers were muffled by the warm air.
The trees stood stories high and rippled in a slight wind. Long after we might have eased our hands apart to walk quicker, we slowed still more and held hands tighter. I thought of Loran Helm saying: “in the Kingdom, when you feel like things are too slow, slow down.” The night felt simple in our hands and it was easy to talk.
Some summer nights say “Don’t scrutinize the clocks or the stars. Talk about small things known only to the two of you. Trade secrets.”
Later, as we lay together at midnight, I whispered those words in her ear, and she pulled my hand down to feel the baby just then rustle like the night wind behind her belly button.
Sometimes I don’t know how to live these days. What do such summer nights leave behind that is permanent and sweet? All my life I’ve seen aging people hope their children will be their legacy, and I’ve pitied them, for children are so often disappointing. And children, for a man who has spent so many years on his own, without the claim on time and mind that a child is? This child, what will he be?
But another small voice says such concern can stomp the mustard seeds, the seeds from which all treasures bloom. I need to slow down, slow down, feel the baby shift so slightly toward the great wide world. If there can be children and poetry on the same summer night, spoken in the same tongue….each true thing, no matter how small, contains all true things.