Following My Son

My dishes went unwashed today,

I didn’t make the bed,

I took his hand and followed

Where his eager footsteps led.

Oh yes, we went adventuring,

My little son and I,

Exploring all the great outdoors

Beneath the summer sky.

We waded in a crystal stream,

We wandered through a wood.

My kitchen wasn’t swept today,

But life was sweet and good.

We found a cool sun-dappled glade

And now my small son knows

How Mother Bunny hides her nest

Where fern and larkspur grow.

We watched a robin feed her young,

We climbed a sunlit hill,

Saw cloud-sheep scamper through the sky;

We plucked a daffodil.

That my house was neglected,

That I didn’t sweep the stair,

In twenty years no one on earth

Will know or even care.

But that I’ve helped a little boy

To noble manhood grow,

In twenty years the whole wide world

May look and see and know.

-Anonymous