Lake Day – a poem for this mama’s broken heart

I might break beneath
good things,
my son running in
with grasshoppers caught
in Grandpa’s field;
he goes to kindergarten
in only a week.

but later I might break beneath
sad things
my world closing in
on the living floor,
reality hits harder in the open
saying those words aloud;
feels like a death, feels like a funeral.
I still don’t cry the tears that try,
that should have fallen
awhile ago.
those grasshoppers didn’t make
the night.

seems like my heart breaks
either way, in every way.
but holding my hand on the way to
a summer’s lake my little girl says
to herself, to me—
it’s been a long day, take a breath.

I’m not bleeding out
from all these gaping wounds,
these happy wonders,
am I?
I’m breathing;
take one.

-S.V.F. // Lake Day