My Two Silly Kids

My Two Silly Kids.

One walks with her head held high.
Her eyes on the far distance, I feel.
But a small smile on her lips
says she is aware of me,
and so she stays close to me.
All outward signs are of dignity and assurance
but that little play of lips,
and the quick looking away,
says more, more than words could ever say.
Sometimes she is all sparkle and colour and pizzazz,
then she retreats into some secret place of her own,
I try not to see nor to fuss but I do any way...
that is the nature of us...
Then she runs through the house, banging and crashing
alive and wondrous.
I hold her joy of life, her vitality in my soul always.

The other walks, her large eyes already searching,
They hold my eyes from the first.
She watches me watching her, from the first.
She watches my watching her all the while.
Sometimes she drags her feet and looks pale,
Sometimes she does a silly walk for me.
She does things totally, never a foot in each camp,
A moment earlier with her friends she had not a thought of me,
Now it is all for me ... and I’d just better be there or else!!
Out in the garden she gently pokes at life, finding out things
quietly getting it all in order,
like in a filing cabinet for some future reference.

I hold her large eyes in my soul always.

Therese Mackay 1991