Steps

There are three steps from my sidewalk to my front porch

And one more leads right on into the front door.

There are the same number going down the other way.

There’s one step down to check the mail box face to face.

There are about 10 steps down the back deck to the ground

And about 30 steps to the front gate if you go outside around.

There are countless steps along my rose garden since

I can never stop walking back and forth soaking in the scents.

There are quite a few steps down to the basement and

Trust me, there are twice as many coming back.

There are two or three steps up into the big van we bought

Depending on how you enter, it’s never a graceful seat I got.

Yes, there are steps all over this house, in and out.

And I deal with them every day and have no doubt

I am qualified to state with quite some authority

That there are none, not one, step, in the whole of this family.

There are children who live here and ones who live here no more.

There are children I miss. I don’t see them much anymore.

There are children who delight me in some way every day

And children who annoy me each day in many ways.

There are children who I am proud of lots of days

And children I despair sometimes will ever mend their ways.

There are children who’s faces make me want to smile

And there are some who can steal my smile a while.

There are grandchildren who are precious to behold.

Their faces in my memory, I cradle and hold.

There is one newly married to us and I crave to know her more.

Well, they’re all kind of new and I just want a fifth or a fourth.

So there are steps all over my house and my yard and my home.

But in my family, where love lives, in my heart there are none.

If I bust you for real you will feel equally my wrath

And if you do something great you will walk my happy path.

Every child who has been in my care has known

I try, I love, I mess up. You can take me high and bring me low.

My most urgent prayer for all of you, child and grand, is learn,

Learn and know, no steps, no chance my back will ever turn.

But always, always, whether good or bad or in between

It is the child and the hope and the future that I see

When I look down, ok, mostly up, (I’m short), and see my love

In the faces of the children here, our blessings from above.

Kathy Adams