Back To School

There they go again. Lunches and backpacks for their drop out of the mother ship. And there goes a daughter in a new dress and a son up before the dawn. The last one lines up with her new class. And we go about our daily routine. Another day but it does mark summers end doesn't it even though summer goes to the twenty first of September. And even on the bike ride you can hear the corn rustling now and the air has the dry feel of empty husks..the smell of harvest.

And we turn into another year while they greet new schoolmates and renew old friendships. The new teacher could be good or bad. The new desk is something to get used too and summer still yawns out that slit window open to the returning heat. Because summer does come back on the first day of school. It is part of the ritual. A cool summer then blazing heat for those first months of children stuck inside cinder block forts. If only the heat had come earlier.

And you think of all the things you wanted to do with your kids. You did some of them. Went to a ballgame. The pool. Vacation. But you worked a lot and you wonder if you should have spent more time with them while they were home. Because they are not now. They have left like the soon departing summer... and autumn is closing in.

The Pitcher...what a mom won't do for her sons dream