"Um. Uh, Hmmm. Uh. Hmmm. Duh. Uh. Um. Hmmm. Uh. Hmm. Um. Um. Er. Um. Huh. Uuuuuh. Hmmmmmmmmm. Errrrrr. Deeeerrrrrr. Uuuuuuuuuh. Uuuuuuum. A lot of people smoke cigarettes.
I told the boys that I ate the last chocolate rabbit. I saved it for last because I thought it'd be gross but it turned out to be the best thing of all. I thought that I disliked milk-chocolate, but the bunny made me realize it's actually delicious. It took me back decades to when I was their age and loved milk-chocolate. So now I think I'm reverting.
I described how I ate it, in detail, and the boys are so easily amused, they both paid close attention as if I was reading a story. They participated in the story-telling and created quite a ruckus on their end in California, and I could hear how my sister-in-law and brother enjoy their boys being in a gleeful high-energy state of near riot. Those two boys add so much to their lives. Those boys are their lives.
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Those two boys add so much to their lives. Those boys are their lives.
Our two did too! And still do, though differently now, as they have their own lives which extend and hopefully will continue to extend beyond ours.
A poem came in this morning, as they do weekly from Ted Kooser, a 79 year old poet who was born and lives in Iowa. It reminds me of what it's like to be a parent who loves and enjoys their children as audience and actors, sometimes switching roles.
He wrote this with his weekly post and shared poem:
American Life in Poetry: Column 696
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
My teacher and mentor, the late Karl Shapiro, once said of opera, "I'm afraid, Ted, that it's sort of silly." Here is a poem by Richard Schiffman, an environmental journalist from New York, that has a little fun with the hair-on-fire excesses of grand opera. It's from his book, What the Dust Doesn't Know, from Salmon Poetry.
After the Opera
The curtain parts one last time
and the ones who killed
and were killed,
who loved inordinately,
who went berserk, were flayed alive,
descended to Hades,
raged, wept, schemed—
victims and victimizers alike—
smile and nod and graciously bow.
So glad it's finally over,
they stride off
suddenly a bit ridiculous
in their overwrought costumes.
And the crowd—still dark,
like God beyond the footlights of the world—
rises to its feet
and roars like the sea.
Your timing is ponderous (excessively solemn) and impeccable with this one! My laugh arrived when the eye was eaten, with another for the unexpected ending. No wonder Uncle Bo held them enthralled.
The opposite of a pop-up, that's for sure; a bit-off, with a similar element of surprise!
Someday, sooner than one might think, those boys will have a firm enough foundation to be able to mirror back what they learned from their uncle and genuinely inquire of him what he learned on his journey through one more year of life.
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