I carry your heart with me

I have now fallen into the role of doing bedtime for my daughter every night.

Sometimes I am in a rush,

to cook, or to make it on time for a dinner reservation or the start of a tv show,

but other times I savor the time, letting the minutes roll by as we linger in the dark, under her covers.

Tonight’s bedtime stories were different;

usually they are fanciful, made up tales about the popular character of the day;

but tonight, I told her the story of when we first brought home our dog Lola.

She giggled.

And she told me that while I was getting acquainted with Lola, she was busy planting flowers with D’Ba.

And I just felt so much love for her bursting out of every part of me.

And what came out of my mouth was a line from ee cummings,

“Here is the deepest secret nobody knows”

and then I read to her the whole poem.

And she said, in a whisper,

“Mommy, you carry my heart with you and I carry your heart with me. Because I love you.”

She knocked the wind out of me with that one.

I am welled up with tears as I type.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows,

my dear girl.

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart).