One blue smudge on the sheet.
Annother on the ping pong paddle.
Wash his hands.
What? More!
On the bed, the dresser, the laptop.
His arms, her shirt.
The wall.
His face.
Eureka!
The leaky pen.
My hands.
䷩
It furthers one to cross the great water.
GRIZZLY PEAR
One blue smudge on the sheet.
Annother on the ping pong paddle.
Wash his hands.
What? More!
On the bed, the dresser, the laptop.
His arms, her shirt.
The wall.
His face.
Eureka!
The leaky pen.
My hands.
䷩
It furthers one to cross the great water.
A family riding bikes.
A Sunday evening jaunt.
A radio blasting Mariachi.
A memory, eating tacos.
䷰䷠
Starting brings misfortune,
To remain persevering brings good fortune.
He spilled a drop of that sweet, sweet yogurt drink.
She promptly wiped it up.
When she turned around,
He licked the table.
Not fast enough.
“No more snacks!”
䷍䷝
A big wagon for unloading, one may undertake something.
While clearing the table, I finished his last bite of lunch —
a small spoonful of rice and veggies.
I was chewing when he wandered back into the dining room.
He bawled, fell to the floor, and wailed.
His sister strode in to console him.
A pteradactyl swooped down from the sky.
The terrifying dinosaur was befuddled.
Its head was stuck in an ice cream cone.
䷾
An Auspicious Beginning,
A turbulent End.
I came downstairs to a party.
Yesterday’s tower had reassembled into a sea of tables.
The storage bin lids are tabletops on toilet roll legs.
Dora the Dalmation eats straw with Unicorn.
Bear-Bear shares a Rubik’s cube with Violet, an elephant.
George, Adventure, Tiny, Hello Kitty, and Blades chat around their own table.
“Happy Earth Day!”
I add the globe from her desk.
䷼䷓
A crane calling in the shade.
Its young answer it.
He fears two things.
Mother banishing his toys to the garage.
Not so worried to put them away properly,
Just enough to extract an pledge that she won’t clean up after bedtime.
Father coming downstairs to the pantry.
䷋䷥
What if it should fail? What if it should fail?
Seven floors of stuffed animals are sandwiched between slabs of plastic container lids held up by toilet paper roll columns.
More rolls top the penthouse for an outsized gable.
This pagoda is flanked by a pavilion of paper towel tubes topped with a pink throw pillow.
There’s a party on this puffy roof deck.
䷷䷳
Success through smallness
This evening, my wife cut his hair.
A bit longer on top, shorter on the sides.
A crew cut emerged from the mop.
He aged three months in twenty minutes.
䷭䷛
Thus the superior man of devoted character
Heaps up small things
in order to achieve something high and great.
“爸爸后院没有 toilet 我站起来做 peepee”
“Daddy, there’s no toilet in the backyard, I’m going to stand and pee”.
His pants dropped to the ankles, the hip pushed forward and let it fly.
Because we never go out, I worried about his lack of practice in standing urniation.
As with most parenting concerns, it’s a non-issue.
The boy should be less bombastic, but he’s figured out the routine.
They always do.
䷀䷍
Flying dragon in the heavens. It furthers one to see the great man.
Stumble across a Pelikan in a box of old papers.
(bought the fountain pen after finishing college.)
Give it a rinse and reload.
(the ink is also two decades old.)
Writes smooth, better than I remembered.
(not the wisest use of $300, but a nice gift from my past self.)
Wonder what he’d think if we crossed paths.
(I’m exactly twice his age.)
䷟䷧
It Profits To be Steadfast.
A Destination Profits.