Countdown to a Happy One

for butones fernandez

written to bacharach’s april fools

maybe your babushka has arrived at that point when admitting to being a mushy, unreformed romantic is no longer a source of embarrassment.

or maybe it’s with some effort that she puts on a mask of cynicism, a pretense the sort of work she does requires.

when we’ve been apart for two weeks, i re-introduce myself by shaking your tiny hand. you peer at me with soulful eyes that seem to say, “will we resume our interrupted journey that takes us to a somewhere without leaving the spot where we are now?”

yes, we will, dear tiny one, in a few minutes. let me just put down my backpack, let me shed this burdensome hard mask, let me dress down to my comfiest, let me have my cuppa goodwill in our make-believe russian tea room as you bite eagerly into your white cookie.

oh, you must sense i have a sweet core when we’re down on the rubber play mat arranging blocks to look like trains, imagining we are in the orient express together, the passing view switching from plains to exotic hills.

or when i swing you sideways, imagining we are in the amazon, swinging with monkey friends from tree to tree. 

or when i toss you in the air without a harness & shout, "cirque de soleil, eat your heart out!" 

or when i sit you in your balcony filled with light, wind, pots of red blooms & hanging wash & we view the bamboos, pines, white butterflies beyond & wonder, “are we in guangdong yet?”

babushka asks, how is it that your presence of purity has swept out the staleness & dampness from this house?

you nod knowingly, little sun, little button who rises out of the dank corners of my mind & restores in me a sweet-as-rose, mary-like faith on the dawn of another year’s easter. – Babeth Lolarga

photos of Butones Fernandez by her mother Kimi