Luxury

The greatest luxury

Is a person

Who listens to you

Keeps tabs

And doesn't judge you

Day after day

Helps you join, 

Connect, pleat, weave,

Decipher, understand,

Denouement (as a verb)

The disparate threads

That make up your life

My freedom

Sometimes

Freedom might look like

Wearing shorts

- Not allowed in decent company -

In the bedroom

A drizzle

Today,

I let my daughter

Get wet in the drizzle

There was so much against it

That she might catch a cold

A viral fever

A pneumonia

Oh, in fact

That's all

When I was thinking of it

As a hundred-mouthed hydra

But yeah,

There is that much against it

And the dozen people

Who will simulate

A hundred-mouthed hydra

And what do we have FOR it

Except

A child confined indoor

For several days

A warm summer day despite the

Threat of a downpour 

A laugh, a skip

A sense of wonder

As the first, tiny,

Almost warm

Droplet

Hits her delicate skin

A discovery

That those roiling masses

Of dark nothings overhead

Can send moisture

Blessed little droplets of ambrosia

Hurtling down through the atmosphere

All the way up to your skin

So I let her

Dance a bit

Before she scurries

Back inside

Into the shade

Of the shop

A surprise, an awe

An intent concentration

As the sprinkle

Turns to a drizzle

I open the umbrella

And I haul her up on my hip

As we walk back homr

And she hears, 

Perhaps so close for the first time 

The pitter-patter of rain

As it hammers down 

On the umbrella

And sprays out in all directions

A sense of adventure

All the first experiences

Are adventures

No matter how mundane

They are to adults

So yes, a sense of adventure

As she reaches out

From under the umbrella

Catches a few droplets

On her outstretched palms

And exclaims

The rain! The water!

It reached me!

Yes, she got

The cuffs of her

(Monsoon-protection)

Light-but-full-sleeved top

Wet 

But then,

I listen to the words

Tumbling out in haste

Almost as if

They wouldn't make sense

If you don't know what to listen for

The rain! The water!

It reached me!

And I think,

That's a good deal

And

Just as well,

The Hundred-mouthed hydra

Does not read my blog!

The fear

Is not that

The marriage will be

Coerced

The fear is that

She will end up like her mother

Overloaded

Working double shift

Taken for granted

Unappreciated

Unloved

And yet

Forced to smile

Through it all

Love?

To want

Everything the best

For you

To do

Everything I can

To help you have it

And yet

To not

Want to be with you

Is that still love?

(Maybe Love is a superstition.

A prayer we say to keep 

The thought of loneliness at bay.

- shadow and bone)