The Dr. Seuss DVD (and me)

There I sat in my classroom a little after noon,
awash in the Seussical sounds
of “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.”
In an instant, I was a little girl again giggling
over the way the wondrous words tripped over
my seven year old tongue.
For a brief moment I could bask in the task
of needing to do nothing more than soak in the world,
discovering the uncovering of words.
Then, with no time between rhymes,
I heard the familiar refrain involving the train and the rain:
“I do not like Green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am.”
This time, though fast, the years had past.
The little girl I’d now find in my mind
was my daughter
who was no more than two,
reading by memory her favorite book.
“Would you, could you on a boat? Would you, could you with a goat?”
the precious voice from so many years ago
proudly recited each line in my mind.
And then the blast from the past gave way to today,
as I remembered that little girl
will be graduating from college in two months.
Two months and then she will be completely free.
No more my little girl.
No more Seuss.
No more youth.
The mere thought made me
wipe my eyes to try not to cry.
But before I could dry my eyes,
my movie wrapped with a quote
from a note that Dr. Seuss wrote
in his last years:
“How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?"

And as I stared at every letter,
I knew no one could say it better.