Hummingbird Featured Poem

To A Daughter Leaving Home by Linda Pastan

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping 
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye. 

Curator’s Note: The poem begins with a mother remembering teaching her 8 year old daughter to ride a bicycle. As the child pedals farther and farther away, the mother runs behind her, afraid she will fall. But the daughter is delighted by her new freedom, while her mother realizes that she is learning to let her go. I love the poem because it captures something every parent knows: the pride and pleasure of seeing a child become independent, mixed with the sadness of no longer being quite so necessary. The final image of the daughter's hair seeming to wave goodbye stays with you long after the poem ends. Lynda Bernard