Sliding Towards Home by Thomas Zampino (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Sliding Towards Home
by Thomas Zampino

the alpine slide up north
was the first time we released you.
we watched as your curly
brown hair flit side-to-side in the
opposite direction of your body.
the toboggan jolted, then slid down
the long winding path until you
disappeared from our view.

yesterday we watched you two
hold hands several paces ahead
and we saw your long brown
hair bouncing from side-to-side
in tandem with his movement.
and for the second time we
released you, as you began
sliding towards home.

IMAGE: A Girl on a Toboggan Sledding Down a Hill (A. L. Foster & Co.). Prints available at art.com.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I was drawn to poetry late in life. Most of my writings relate to family or simply to things that have become more obvious to me as I get older. “Sliding Towards Home” was inspired by watching my oldest with her beloved, months before their marriage, and finally coming to terms with the notion that a parent’s most important responsibility is in the releasing – and realizing that’s something that sometimes must happen more than once.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thomas Zampino, a Manhattan attorney for over 35 years, started writing poetry only recently. Some of his work has appeared in The University of Chicago’s Memoryhouse Magazine, Silver Birch Press (twice), Bard’s Annual (2019, 2020, and 2021), Trees in a Garden of Ashes, Otherwise Engaged, Chaos, A Poetry Vortex, Nassau County Voices in Verse, and No Distance Between Us. A video enactment of his poem “Precise Moment” was produced by Brazilian director and actor Gui Agustini. His first book of poetry, Precise Moment, was released in 2021. Visit him at gracepending.wordpress.com.