Transferring to your collegeAlways installing the car seatsServing as your human alarm clockFolding tiny pairs of underwear just soReading an essay he wants to share with you as you both lie in bed and not minding when you fall asleep halfway throughGoing to small group, pressing into friendshipDriving the old car The middle-of-the-night parent, the patient parent, the fun parent Hearing “my wife” across the room, a thrill stillResearching the candidatesFalling asleep with the light onandGrumbling about how you stay up too late to read Making every hard decision less scaryNever ever giving you a reason to doubtAlways reaching for you, always beside you An unending conversation with my best friendWho we were and who we areThe most fun we’ve ever hadSo simple, so grand. In honor of our 12th anniversary, inspired by Jen

I tried hard to get part three of our current series ready for today but didn’t quite get there. Monday! For today, a poem that absolutely delighted me when I saw it in The Atlantic last year. The internal rhyme! The line breaks! I hope you enjoy. Bats and SwallowsErica McAlpine Whatever the difference might beto one who knows,we couldn’t seefrom where we stood in soft shadowsany signs that they were swallows or bats. That there were wingswas without doubt;you could see small pointed thingsswooping outinto the gloaming– and sometimes back.One seemed almost iridescentas I tried to trackits crescentflight across the hill. The lack of sound suggestedbats to me;you strained to see if they nestedsomewhere below theterrace, having rested your case on swallows.We couldn’t be sure either way–and so it followsthat neither of us knows.But since it is in your nature always to side one wayor the other, you holdthat they were swallows. I saythe question never gets old,that either, or both, hold sway. Photo from Warren Photographic