Porch Music

The rocking chair wobbles on its fragile frame.  This is the third generation of babies it has cradled.  Naptime for my young grandson is imminent.  Jonathan rubs his eyes and fusses a bit, so I  lay aside the afghan I am crocheting for his soon-to-be sibling.  Jonathan’s rocking days are numbered. I know that full well.  But for now, he snuggles on my shoulder. His short breaths and fluttering eyelids succumb to sleep.

The rocking chair speaks to me of good times spent in its embrace.  The harmony of our hearts beat a cadence of silent symphony. I remember time spent in the rocking chair on Granny’s screened in front porch many summer afternoons.  It was my favorite spot to read a Nancy Drew mystery or write in my diary.

Years later, my daughters would climb into my lap in the bentwood rocker giggling and wet from running through the sprinklers.  Wrapped in beach towels, we read adventures from the library books we’d lugged home.  No matter that the caned back occasionally threatened to dump its massive load.  My two merrymakers remained oblivious. 

Starlit summer evenings would find us back in the rocker.  My two mischief makers holding jelly jars filled with lightning bugs. Our bug lanterns provided ambiance for bedtime stories retold to tousled sleepyheads.  And our old friend with her raspy voice embraced us all.

The same lullaby links the past to the present.  She shimmies with our weight.  Her bolts need tightening again.  And I really should give her joints a spritz of WD-40.  My procrastination has to do with what my great grandmother once said, “Rocking chairs are supposed to creak, it’s their porch music.”