Lesson on Carrying

Note stapled to second-grade addition homework: Please DO NOT teach your child to carry.

How to add things up in this world is a mystery to me
then, child. One step and one step I know to be
two. Beyond that, who knows what to say about arc
or vector, or whether the two giant steps you took
this morning were in place, stamping your feet for warmth
at the bus stop, or the first two steps toward somewhere.

Child, I remember only a thread of what you’re living now:
Deep indigo seam of someday. Knowing I would grow
away and into someone, as days doubled up into years.
Truth is, I’m still running down that wooded trail in tears
grabbing anything I can find: rhymes and stones, the sound
of my mother singing, my brother’s outstretched hand.

To carry anything at all–no longer taught, I know.
But open up your pockets, child. I have something to give you.