My daughters make faint marks in their little collaged scrap paper art books from auntie Em

outside the roosters crow in the gray of day
as little shoots inch their way up into this March light
in little planters filling our laundry room

fir crackles in the wood stove
pitch spitting in defiance of combustion
Lyli wobbles around the living room chanting 'appy 'appy
scarleht signs hurt by touching her index fingers together several times
as we discuss last night's hair combing adventure

we work on signing 'today' 'tomorrow' and 'yesterday' as I explain to them
that time does not have to be linear

take me for example, to whom time has become a folded sheet I sometimes shake the dust from

Our children's development mirrors Stephanie and my difficulties in ways which are hard to explain. As our daughters learn to speak it is as if Stephanie and my ability to do so has devolved, hopefully only temporarily. Perhaps we have gifted those energies in our own beings to our girls to quench their aching thirst. In this transition time before spoken language takes off like a jumbo jet it often feels at the end of a day spent mostly teaching them to talk, it often feels as if my faculties of thought and patience have dried up, expended and withered against their absurd sponge-like enthusiasm and boundless energy. Maybe I've just lost the ability to interact with anyone beyond drunks and small children... which still leaves a lot of people to talk to at least.

But mostly around adults I just feel tired and out of place, as if the cumulative weight of their years oppresses me somehow. At the same time add to this mix a bit of youthful idealism and energetic pride to be doing all that I am doing so young, to garner the respect of this tired old club dreaming down dead-end streets.

Around those my own age I still feel that same anachronistic awkwardness... having grown in ways unbeknownst to my peers but also having a piece of my own growth stunted, those few limbs which shoot for the sky before they know not to try, that reckless selfish coming to terms with ones fantasies and fictions before sitting down to tell a tale.