I tuck my baby into bed and tell her tales in rhyme.
When it’s late, I know my fate:
“Please sing it one more time!”
“Once upon a time, many years ago,
three little pigs and Goldilocks watched a beanstalk grow.
Chicken Little saw skies fall while the little brown hen baked bread.
And Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer flew a jolly fat man’s sled.”
When slumber meets plea, I stand quietly
alone in the darkening light.
And I wonder again, as I do now and then:
am I doing this parent thing right?
Do babies retain each angry refrain?
The day’s patience exhausted in haste?
Words poorly selected, tones rudely inflected –
hurts even the night can’t erase?
When she’s grown and I’m old
will her memory hold
the treasures bestowed her in rhyme?
Will she remember the love gently tendered…
…when I sang the song one more time?
Lucinda Kennaley writes poetry from her home in Kansas City.