OLD POEM, SAME REFRAIN

Life has been caught up in that harried coming and going: work, home, work, home, here, there. This poem written when Liam was a baby captures the general feeling - we are stunned from the busyness.

Two Beams of Fragile Light
J.B. Rowell

One says there are no monsters
under her bed
because there is no room
too many books.
She wants to stay at school
when I pick her up.

The other lunges
to latch on
when I hold him again
mouthing for comfort
after the substitute he is given
warmed in a crock-pot.

I say there are no monsters
anyway
but how can I keep holding
back invisible crowding?

We drive home stunned
to books under beds and
desperate feedings.
While another day dims
their fragile bodies are lifted
out of the bathtub.