Gifts that you gave me Lucia
are as follows:
a faded rose-colored cheap plastic
heart the size of a hummingbird’s,
ochre-colored lozenge, same cheap plastic,
both made to look like jewels
to a four-year-old girl;
two marbles, hair barrette
in the shape of a sunflower, but blue
and then what looks to be a turtle
with it’s head missing—
All stuffed in a small envelope
Lucia scribbled over with half a dozen colored markers.
Pretty nice gifts I said
when she handed them to me.
I set the envelope next to Esai’s gift:
two common backyard stones,
one smaller than the other, tied together
with a rubberband to represent the very simple shape
of a human being—
the kind of nondescript figurine
without limbs or facial features
an archeologist unearths at an ancient burial site.
My two young ones
are still young enough
to tap into an archetypal memory
vivid and active ceremony
in their gift-giving
growing hearts.