First Grader

By Clinton F. Larson

She can draw, or maneuver pieces of a puzzle

(Is it jigsaw, tinker, rubric?), and so confound

Adults into an amazement through which, so profound,

She cleverly saunters, neatly original, to nuzzle

Up to Merlin in a primer book, though never to muzzle

Any ilk of storyteller. Her feeling surely as sound

As thinking, she considers backyard denizens bound

By duties of affection, including birds and chuzzle-

Wits. Neatly riding whatever crest (joy, bluegrass,

Wind), she appoints discourse with dayspring blue,

Lifting forward into fairest reasoning to surpass

Our logic, offering violets to affluent us to sue

For favors for various waifs. I say, in sobriety,

That she will ever be president of a relief society.

Photography by Steve Bunderson