Another One

The cycles continue
Even as cycles change,
As cyclists come and go,
Small empires rise and fall.
Sarah goes for a run.
I watch Sequoia walk,

Staggering and plopping
Down, waddling up, plopping
Down, struggling back up,
Wobbling over to me
On the uneven planks
Of the sunny mud room.

There's a box on the floor
Holding a few items
My mother left at death
That my sister mailed me.
A Hummel now broken,
Bookends I made for her

As a boy in Dad's workshop,
One of those Christmases
When we economized
And made all our own presents.
The face of a small boy
Stares at me from the box.

Sequoia toddles by,
Investigates the box,
Pulls out wrapping paper,
The headless Hummel's head,
The bubble wrap that failed
To protect the tchotchkes,

One bookend with my face,
45 years ago,
Black and white, serious,
Cut with careful jigsaw
And glued to the cut pine,
Which she tosses aside.