Before the World Catches Up

Headnote: As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have recently taken part in a college mini-course for which the focus was using photos to inspire poetry and taking photos to illustrate existing poems.  The poem that follows was inspired by a photo I took of Pooh at the farm nearly a year and a half ago, when he was not yet three.

Before the World Catches Up

Blowing white fluff
off a dandelion stem
is one of those things
you know to do innately,
like writing with a pudgy
finger on windows
where water condenses
to make a slate
just for you.

A kid thinks nothing of
the weed-filled yard,
the smudged glass,
but only of pure
pleasures like these:
decorating a picture window
with ABC's and stickmen
and watching dandelion seeds
loft lazily up, up, upward
against a cloud-filled sky.

Footnote: This picture of Pooh has been hanging on the wall in the kids' room since I took it a year ago last September.  It is one of my all-time favorite shots of him.  But he is four now, and the gallery needs updating.  It is time for new pictures and new poems.