Reading poetry on the porch

Diary entry for Aug 7, 2016

Forgotten moments of pure joy: We arrive home one afternoon, Leo and I, to find a plastic bag twisted around the handle of the front door. 

It’s a slew of Poetry magazine issues from our 84-year-old neighbor, Art, the former chemist. Something Leo has become accustomed to seeing (Old issues of The New Yorker make up my part of the exchange with Art). 

So many issues (bound, as they are, like little books) that it appears to be a bounty we must explore immediately. And perhaps one member of the team is particularly snoozy and so we sit on the porch, he and I doubled up in one chair, reading poems from Poetry magazine, as we wait for Daddy to come home from work. 

And he sits so happily, so quietly, absorbing words of modern poetry, while I sit so happily, absorbing a scene of uncommon purity and joy, in my favorite spot in the house, feeling the press of his warm skin against mine, hearing the string of verse spooling out of my mouth and into his ears, and please God, into his conscience, into the part of his brain that forms his being.