Brave

You set out to do the extraordinary,

you brave, homeschooling mother

Armed with the consummate classics:

Tom Sawyer, Little Britches, A Wrinkle in Time

and piles of God's Heroes:

Amy Carmichael, Nate Saint,

and some days you think you'd rather be

on the Amazon with the natives

than in the living room with

your own flesh and blood,

who've got you at the end of your rope,

or is the end of the spear?

The oldest fusses over analyzing sentences

while secretly peeking at football plays

Another disappears from her math lesson

and magically reappears out the window,

a pendulum on the rope swing

And why is the youngest in tears over

their, there, and they're?

All day long you point

to the piano the dishwasher the next problem

the key word the vowel team the pile of towels

the board game spread across the couch

the half done science experiment on the counter

the dog

begging for dinner

You wish you could control their eyes

while your own wander to the

hummingbird at the feeder

and you privately long for wings

The words nag:

Am I enough?

And then you remember...

the first school was in a garden

So you say to the children,

let's go pick the rest of the vegetables

There is going to be a hard freeze tonight

And, blessed, you call it a lesson in

biology, meteorology, home ec, and religion

Suddenly you notice

their roots have eased down a little deeper

and you feel just a little braver

today