Letters to Astrid
Dear Astrid, it rained hard today. Maybe the first hard rain all summer. The foxes and rabbits and groundhogs stayed in their dens Birds stayed in their nests. If you were here, we’d stay in, too. I’d hold you close but facing out to see the trees, tall, full, serious with their weight of green, waving in the wind. You are far from here, though, watching ocean waves roll in or fog slip right up to your window. Today two astronauts splashed back down to earth. Maybe you saw that, too. In photographs you have a serious face taking in a world of forms and movement. Only in one do you smile, wide and private. Smiles at your age are involuntary, the experts say. But experts have been wrong about a host of wonders. Your smile, I say, chief among them. Your age, I think, is anybody’s guess. S. Robbins, August 2, 2020
Sherry Robbins 