Poetry Friday — School’s Out

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It is officially summer here.
The deck is draped with drying towels.
The freezer is full of popsicles.
The kids are home, flopping around in their jammies, making collages out of the National Geographics and listening to Harry Potter on their iPods.

I love summer.
I love the sense of closure that comes with the end of a school year.
I love that bedtimes don’t matter and alarms don’t ring.
I love my kids home, flopping around in their jammies, making collages out of the National Geographics and listening to Harry Potter on their iPods.

Still, as a parent, there is always something bittersweet about the passage of time.
The teacher goodbyes ache.
The outgrown clothes stun.
The independence startles.

It is honestly hard for me to believe that when we start back to school in August, I will have a 3rd grader and a 5th grader on my hands. My breath catches when I realize how long my little ones have been around, how fast they’ve grown, how not-very-little they are.

I relish each new idea they grasp, each new step they take into themselves, I really do.
But dang, if it could just slow down, ’cause I really, really, really like having them around…

My own personal antidotes to the poignancy?
Spending lots of time together.
Taking pictures.
A good dose of humor.
Poetry.

Y’know, this sort of thing:

 

For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman

by Miller Williams

Because you’ll find how hard it can be
to tell which part of your body sings,
you never should dally with any young man
who does any one of the following things:
tries to beat all the yellow lights;
says, “Big deal!” or “So what?”
more than seven times a day;
ignores yellow lines in a parking lot;
carries a radar detector;
asks what you did with another date;
has more than seven bumper stickers;
drinks beer early and whiskey late;

(Read the rest here…)

 

26 Responses to “Poetry Friday — School’s Out”

  1. jamarattigan

    Oh wow, this is a great poem (and phew! my DH doesn’t do any of those things). . .

    Enjoy all the precious and special moments with your girls this summer.

  2. Anonymous

    Elaine M.

    That’s a great poetry selection. Handing a poem like that to one’s daughter when she starts dating might be a good idea–and get her thinking about the kind of guys she’s going out with. The poem pretty much says it all!

  3. saralholmes

    For some reason, “more than seven bumper stickers” cracks me up. But the swerving to hit a snake makes me mad. I guess I’m grateful that I like my daughters choices. So far. 🙂

    It’s NOT summer here. Another week of exams and it’s raining. Blah. I wore my purple raincoat in protest today.

  5. susanwrites

    Oh I love this and I love that you are so observant of your children’s growing up times. I wish I had been more so way back then.

  6. mlyearofreading

    “And be careful of all the rest.”

    Good advice.

    But somehow, I get the sense that Big One and Little One will be running the show when it gets to be time for more than pool towels, popsicles and Harry Potter on the iPods…

    • liz_scanlon

      That’s the hope, isn’t it? That by then they’re so confident and centered that they won’t need the warning? I love that last line, too, though. Just love it…

  7. Anonymous

    Oh, wow. Thanks. I missed that earlier. I’m printing this one and keeping it.

    My oldest heads to kindergarten in the fall, and I’m PRE-EMPTIVELY feeling poignant and teary.

    I hope you all have a great summer. Popsicles=Mmm.

    Jules
    7-Imp