.                            for Hazel

From the ancient ash
hangs my son’s baby swing
a yellow plastic shell
his Dad and I have saved for 32 years.
This morning it holds our granddaughter,
at 2, she ‘whees’ in her glee,
points at the brown and white spotted ‘gogs’
and sings to the ‘geeeze’ in the pond beyond.
How can this be? That 32 years have passed,
that I am old
and am swinging my child
of my child
with the breeze of the trees?

-Deborah Cooper