Her Cardboard Box
Photos, artwork, treasures of family or friends, paintings of a backyard whistling wrens.
Birthday blessings, beaded bracelets, bubble wands, baby socks, collected rocks all residing in a old cardboard box.
Her pink pacifier, and animals drawn in crayons, one of her holding my husband’s hand,
A chubby pink piggy bank, its empty rubber door, pennies inside and on the cellar floor.
Crinkly report cards, goodbye grades and plastic trophies from a young age.
Artwork of flower beds for sleeping bees, pencil drawings of tall birch trees.
A cracked aquarium, for a favorite frog, she found excited,happily hopping on log.
She name him CROAK for his bumpy cloak.
At 5 she wrote at of cherry feather from a fallen nest, belonging once to a cardinal’s crest.
Page1 her sketch of chipmunk, a real chatty chap, who invited himself in one day, for a nap!
In a summer lake at 6, she swam and found a slippery fish, “If I catch it” she wished,
“I’ll blow him a kiss, then throw him back mommy…. I promise!”
“I want a special house under the ground, filled with acorn soup, and squirrel sounds.
A dried up nuthatch nest , a perfect place for me to rest.
Milkweed pods, blankets of bird feathers,and pine,” Oh, I wish all of nature was all mine. She begged her dad at age 9
Round grey pebbles ,moss from the ground,
“If I put these together, can a fairy be found?” Asked 10 year old Caroline, thinking outloud.
The bottom of the box slept a smooth square cap, tassels raining down one side ,silky strides.
All grown up, graduating with her parent's pride..“Thank God for these memories kept inside.
Now 5 feet tall Caroline works with the EPA, and has so much to say.
“Clean up your mess, all are deadly pests.”After hundreds of years, plastic is still around, ocean heat melts icy homes, then polar bears drown.
Whale can starve without mammals or krill. Your garbage and trash entering in the ocean, kills.
Diapers and plastic keep out of our seas, recycle your trash, animals do not need!
“My eyes now light up and I am full of joy and a sense of pride”
As Ingrid Bergman once said when speaking of her sons, “It has been an extraordinary privilege being your mother” “The world is a more beautiful place because of you”
Caroline.
Copyright ©
Marikate Kingston
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