playdoh therapy

in a world where prism-puddles
and sprinklers on lawns
make children squeal in ecstasy,
there's something rather wrong
with little hands that love to open
cups of coloured dough
but fear to squish them up into
a beautiful rainbow.

see, when i was a little girl,
i was afraid to mix it --
afraid to muddy up the hues
so that i could not fix it.
i never formed a marble,
a guppy with pretty fins,
or anything else that would be doomed
to land in the garbage bin.

the other day, my three sons pulled
cups of coloured dough
from the cupboard to the floor
and stacked them in a row.
i turned from my computer screen
and sprawled out with my boys.
we opened lids and turned dough into
messy blobs of joy.

i built my four-year-old a pumpkin,
then i watched him smash it.
my five-year-old mixed red with black.
(it felt so good to mash it!)
pretty sure my jellyfish
would go as jelly goes,
i let my two-year-old subject it
to digestive throes.

well, the mess we made together
cannot possibly be
sorted back into containers.
still, it's plain to see
that coloured dough, like all such things,
is by no means eternal...
unless you use it up -- waste it! --
for memories supernal.