Bucket List Day

Monument Valley:
the perfect sunrise rest stop
to light our faces

snow at Grand Canyon:
surprise bucket list side trip
to catch her snowfall

all three together:
it feels like a bucket list
to let them g(r)o(w)

Coronadas

a new Corona 
three years after quarantine 
back to wilderness

girls’ trip for spring break 
to collect our Subaru 
and meet our sister

miracle arches 
connect the past and future 
with hope for this life

your bucket list waits
for a ‘delicate’ sunset,
a breathtaking arch

your children await
at the top of a boulder 
with the perfect view

a lifetime awaits
at the end of vacation 
yet memories last

after four days off
(a vacation i needed)
what a perfect note

and the orchid blooms!
he bought her eight years ago
(just a baby then)

they were babies then
my daughters, their dolls, these blooms
(trying to find light)

now unstoppable 
bursting with so many buds
(flowers for futures)

post-pandemic flight
the first for me; with my girls
to steal a weekend

beautiful DC:
the center of our country,
sordid past exposed

a bar mitzvah morn
in year five-seven-eight-three
from our first beliefs

a city forest
walking distance from temple 
Shabbat salom. Peace.

my happy daughters
finding books, happiness, love
on our girls’ weekend

dock spider, mud, fish;
a small hardwood forest hike 
to a man-made lake

you can feel the joy
seeping through this perfect view
of nature, reborn

lakes are in my blood. 
i learned to swim in one
and love nothing more

a magical place:
the only way to describe 
these teenage smiles

even pup loves it 
cycling past wildlife
below the Smokies

where can you see bears
and collect salamanders 
under the same sun?

this mountain-framed pic
taken on the same soil
twenty-three years past

we’re fatter, older
while the mountains are hotter;
such is life—sad changes

yet look at our girls
fearlessly taking this on
one moon-wing a time