One Stop Spotlight: when you grow into legs by Emily Wieranga

Through One Shot Wednesday, I have had the opportunity to meet many remarkable poets, one of whom is Emily Wierenga. Emily has the most incredible heart and she lets it flow through her words which are filled with love and faith. Emily also runs Imperfect Prose on Thursdays, where she invites broken people to spill themselves out. Here is a piece that Emily did just for us...

when you grow into legs…

by e. wierenga

he was all limbs as he rolled the sand-hill, baby squealed and clapped, banged stick to ground and daddy gathered son, spun him fast, all on a day of autumn when the gold leaves seemed rapunzel and nothing was anything but magic

((and when you grow into legs and you run sky-high, i'll be here, kissing air, waving love you, goodbye))

and husband told me breathless, they'd spent summers here, adults folded up top in chairs, scattered picnic blankets and smoked meat sandwiches and the cousins tumbling down ... and the winds of fallen acorn whispered yes, this is so, we were here, and the cries of children-past sounded in my son

((and when you grow into legs and you run sky-high, i'll be here, kissing air, waving love you, goodbye))

i dig toes in sand and wish to somehow save the magic in a bottle but boy is getting big, too big, to fit into small so all i can do is hold him at night until he wiggles free but that night, he didn't wiggle and so i just kept holding and he sighed as if with wisdom of growing old and i understood why my grandma always shook her head and told us not to rush things, because life does enough of that for us....

and i spoke into his hair, the color of trees-golden on autumn's sand-hill:
when you grow into legs and you run sky-high i'll be here, kissing air, waving love you, goodbye...