For my son Lindsay III…

It was just yesterday when you pulled on your Oshkosh (by gosh !) Overalls...rubbed the sleep out of your eyes and asked,
“Hey Mommy can I have some ice cream if I eat all my lunch today?”

By Susan Kathryn de Vegter
Copyright 2006

Curls all in blonde streaks with cheeks pink and smitten
With freckles all blotched and soft as a kitten
The smile that could melt any tyrant today
Would make my heart shine and brighten my day
The soft little voice all swathed in blue denim
Barefoot and proud and humming or singing
Always a product of my every dream
With cinnamon toast kisses that seemed
To come from a treasure somewhere I don’t know
With bubbled up lips with a buzz to bestow
The pains of this world from us hardened adults
To chase them somewhere that pains go to rust
You got your ice cream that day I recall
Then while on the front porch steps you called
“Hey mom! Don’t know what I’m su’posed to do
The cold part is melting while I’m all hot too
What does it mean to be hot all the same
When my ice cream is melting and I’m not to blame”
“Momma come here! It’s making a mess
The ants are here too and they’re getting the best
Part of my lunch …
Oh what should I do
I’m hot and it’s cold and I want it all too…"
I ran to the porch and sure ‘nuf it was gone
All that was left was a sweet-wafered cone
Clutched in the fist of my crying young lad
With a freckled red cheek and a face screaming sad
I made it a poem to make this a game
Then quietly I whispered
“It’s best all the same…
For if you had eaten all of that thing
The ants would be hungry from now until spring
It’s thoughtful for you to remember and care
For the smallest of creatures your ice cream to share.”
It was his lesson for that special day
When he learned at our home there’s always a way
“To be creative”…it’s still etched in stone
From that day he gave ants his cold ice cream cone