PoKaL!

At 3:45 pm 5 years ago, today, I became a mother for the first time.
I was excited, exhausted, terrified, thrilled, and completely unequal to the task of being responsible for another human being. I charged forth anyway. What else could I do? Now, five years later I'm pretty sure I (nor DH for that matter) haven't muddled it up too badly yet. I present PoKaL as evidence:
Oh sure, we've had some highs and lows--many instances where I looked back and thought, "well, THAT could have gone more smoothly"--but all in all he seems to be coming along. PoKaL is an almost elemental force. He possesses energy and emotions in such vast quantities, I'm not really sure how he manages to stay inside his own skin. He's charming, funny, compassionate, intelligent, and resourceful---and I love him more than I could ever attempt to put in words. I try to remember this when he's making me crazy!

In honor of my PoKaL, AND National Poetry month, I've selected a poem which really "spoke" to me today. While I'm fairly certain C. K. Williams meant this piece to be self-reflective, for me it illicits images of PoKaL becasue he IS in my heart. I too worry that it might be my doing that keeps him from becoming everything he can be.

The World's Greatest Tricycle Rider
by C. K. Williams

The world’s greatest tricycle rider
is in my heart, riding like a wildman,
no hands, almost upside down, along
the walls and over the high curbs
and stoops, his bell rapid-firing,
the sun spinning in his spokes like a flame.

But he is growing older. His feet
overshoot the pedals. His teeth set
too hard against the jolts, and I am afraid
that what I’ve kept from him is what
tightens his fingers on the rubber grips
and drives him again and again on the same block.