Poets in the Family

Grandma told us lots of great stories in Austin. One of my favorites was this one, which she'd written up as a poem several years ago:



Rosie's Dress

"Rosie, don't wear that dress again
It has taken the shape of your behind."
Expectations frozen by words.
Ego down on the floor.
No time to change
A frump of a dresser answered the door.
At evening's end
I wanted to know
"Did I have to be told as Johnny arrived,
'Don't wear that dress again
It has taken the shape of your behind?'"
With a shake of her head
And a sigh came her reply,
"For your own good
I thought you should know."

Fast forward two days and three generations: Simon's class had a poetry reading at the Columbia Library Tuesday night. Earlier in the day our boy seemed quite traumatized by the idea of reading his poem in front of everyone, but when we got there he changed his mind. (I asked him what made him decide to read, and he said, "When I saw how many chairs there were." I think maybe he'd gotten the idea that he'd be up on a stage reading to hundreds of strangers.) Here he is in his Indiana Jones hat, conferring with Max and Logan before the show:


We couldn't get close enough to film the performance, but he gave us a private reading in the park later:





Lava Lamp

The lava lamp like
flying lava jelly
Flying in space
like fighting jelly fish
A battle of clouds
bouncing off each other
like a magnet of coolness
sucking you in
Bubbles inside bubbles
inside bubbles
of bubbly bubbliness