When I Made My Dad Cry (or, Stopping Time)

Legend has it
my dad (who was the age I am now)
dropped me off at college
then cried the whole way home
watering the length of the overpriced
Pennsylvania turnpike with his
salty tears

While that is probably
an exaggeration
or perhaps he was weeping
at the price of the toll
there is still something about
your children growing up
that causes a deep longing
for the days to stop

When Leo takes halting steps
across the kitchen
I want to rise up
stand on my chair
and call out like Joshua
in the hopes that doing so
will keep the sun from moving

These days are gifts
the kind that wear you out
the kind that leave you exhausted
and drinking large mugs of coffee
at four in the afternoon
but these days are still gifts
the kind you want to hold on to
and sip on a little later

But no good comes of stopping
time or trying to reign it in
because these days will grow cold
if we don’t drink them down now

So once again I walk peacefully into
the river the water the current
and it carries me along
to a place where time is nothing
more than one moment after
another

or perhaps time is a road
where the toll we pay
is a heavy one
and there will be some mile markers
that we water
with our tears