Ted Kooser, U.S. poet laureate

One of the wonderful things about small children is the way in which they cause us to explain the world. “What’s that?” they ask, and we have to come up with an answer. Here Christine Stewart-Nunez, who lives and teaches in South Dakota, tries to teach her son a new word only to hear it come back transformed.

Convergence

Through the bedroom window

a February sunrise, fog suspended

between pines. Intricate crystals—

hoarfrost lace on a cherry tree.

My son calls out, awake. We sway,

blanket-wrapped, his head nuzzling

my neck. Hoarfrost, tree—I point,

shaping each word. Favorable

conditions: a toddler’s brain, hard

data-mining, a system’s approach.

Hoar, he hears. His hand reaches

to the wallpaper lion. Phenomena

converge: warmth, humidity,

temperature’s sudden plunge;

a child’s brain, objects, sound.

Eyes widening, he opens his mouth

and roars.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2009 by Christine Stewart-Nunez, whose most recent book of poems is Postcard on Parchment, ABZ Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from the Briar Cliff Review, 2009, by permission of Christine Stewart-Nunez and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.