Essence
by Judith Johnson

Sometimes a moment seems to hold an essence so powerful
it should be recorded,
and it is,
etched in memory.

Like when I brought popsicles
ice cold
into the swelter of summer in the station wagon.

There was a brief almost silence, softened by contented sucking and slurping.

The inevitable "Are we there yet?" made me want to laugh and laugh and laugh,
capturing as it did the immediacy and simplicity of early childhood,
the absolute trust that we would get where we were going.