Marilyn Humbert
Summer Holidays
The grandkids are sleeping over. Once more, we bustle among board games, trip over teddys and step on Matchbox cars. We walk them up the hill for ice-cream cones, then up the hill again to the bus stop for the movies. We cycle bike paths on the waterfront, push them on swings, play frisbee in the park. And the kid noise: the lorikeet-squabbling over who has the biggest slice of cake or taken the most biscuits, their cockatoo-screeching under the sprinkler in the long shadows of evening. At night we hustle them to bed, tuck them under covers, and when the house quiets, doze in front of the tv.
moon phases—
a curlew’s cry sweeps
toward winter
About the Author
Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear internationally in journals and anthologies. She also publishes prize-winning free verse poems.
Ah, you are so fortunate. I want to be a grandma! Enjoyed your lovely poem.
Enjoyed the frenzy and noise-making nearly as much as the grandkids did, as well as the shy “curlew’s cry,” which is perhaps like a grandmother’s?
See and hear curlews at the “Plumes of Oz” at https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&feature=endscreen&v=HkeOSaS_d1c.
So heart-warming!