Page 36 - Savoring

Marianne Murphy Zarzana
LIGHT-BEARER IN THE PEDIATRIC UNIT
Not what my dad dreamed for me—
a saucy wench at the Renaissance Faire
that summer—but the jester’s lessons took, and now when I enter that terrible
darkness, the Pediatric Unit, watch the children’s faces shining
below bald heads, toss four balls— each a small sun—up and higher
up, make them dance, I know all those hours of practice, all
those drops, granted me this magic: children able to release
from the heavy tether
their bodies have become,
enchanted by ther blurry whirl of colors my hands weave
into the fabric of air, their breath hushed, their amazed eyes trained
on a place of zero gravity, such a willingness to be held aloft.
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