The Scoop Tree (Julia Guerin)

#94

Each bare tree is all that's left of today
And those with leaves will vanish soon enough.
My daughter paints what we call the Scoop Tree,
Home of a squirrel who never ran away
When nuts could be scooped up, frantically stuffed
In his cheeks, ignoring my child and me.
I wrote a story about the squirrel,
Read it to her often when she was young.
Now that she's no longer a little girl,
She's painted what the tree's been all along.
There is as much of life in line and ink
As in the existence of tree or tale.
Fail to see or to concentrate (don't blink!),
And what counts will dull, memory will fail.

Note: The day before I posted this sonnet, my daughter Julia
posted the following on Facebook. Her timing couldn't
have been better:

What a great day! I love days with little moments of awesome in them. All of my moments involved people, food or lights. First moment of the day was meeting a woman who seemed so sweet, loving, and wonderful that I couldn't help but smile. She has taken on 3 kids as their new foster mom. As she walked out of school, she swung the little girl that was with her over her shoulder and the girl looked at me with the biggest, most true smile, and waved as they walked away. What a difference this woman is making. 

The food was ice cream brought to me by one of my trouble students and sushi given to me by a customer at my other job. The lights were when the legs of the reindeer lights on Bluffton Road matched up with the beat in my music, and when I was dancing in my car at a stopped train, the car in front of me pumped their break lights in time with me dancing. Fun moment between me and a faceless stranger.
The best moment of the day, however, was when the chef at the restaurant came out and sang for the birthday girl. He belted out happy birthday in his language but in opera style. I didn't expect that at all. His voice was so beautiful and the gesture was so genuine that I almost cried. I love it when people surprise or wow me. Today was filled with moments that make me love humanity.