When Daddy comes home

There is a moment in our day – which hitherto
had teemed with dimpled laughter;
tumbled, nudged and winked its way
across the sunlit birdsong-speckled hours –
there is a moment when the quivering springness
starts to slow; an instant when the light falls wingless
to the cold earth, a sudden folding of the flowers,
a hush of footfall poised upon the roaring brink
where with buckled breath we wait...
we wait for you.