For my son

stay together
learn the flowers
go light
-Gary Snyder

I came home yesterday to find my son and a friend standing around their bicycles, talking and passing something between their hands. They saw me and hopped on their bikes (stay together) and rode down to the end of our street, a cul-de-sac, then off their bikes and up a lonely pine that grows there. I could see their feet scrambling up the low, squatty brances until they found a roosting spot (learn the flowers). There they sat and talked.

I went inside and my girlfriend and I prepared dinner. "Why don't you go call the boys in?" "O.k.," I said. I walked to the edge of the driveway and gave my best dad-to-son-call: "Will, come home." The boys heard me, scrambled down the tree, mounted their bikes, and rode home. As they dismounted, I noticed pocket knives in their hands (go light).

He told me later (stay together) that they were talking, looking at their knives, hanging out in the three. They also found a bottle of vodka with a little left in the bottom. "You guys didn't drink that stuff?" "No, dad. We threw the bottle down the hill." (learn the flowers)

Thanks, Lord, for my son and friends and bikes and pine trees with low branches and pocket knives. And vodka bottles that were thrown away, for now (go light). Amen.