All Girls Grow from Pumpkins

Written in sestina form (tougher than you'd think) for my beautiful little girl.

All Girls Grow From Pumpkins

A mother stands and watches as curiosity leads a tiny girl

Laughing loudly, bouncing the sound off the silent pumpkins

The patch is large and maze-like, the smell of crisp Autumn in the air

The daughter carefully traces each pumpkin with little fingers and a smile

The mother wonders what those elfin fingers will look like when they’ve grown

The orange fruit, the small fingers, the maze; All remind the mother of love

The daughter stops to rearrange the scarf, pink, knitted by mother with love

She ponders the shape of the gourds, curving like her mother, so different from her own form of a girl

Will she have slopes and turns, like the pumpkins, like her mother, when she is grown?

The daughter thinks it must be lovely to have such roundness in body, to resemble those pumpkins

The thought of becoming a pumpkiny woman gives her cause to smile

She lets out a tangible “Yippee” that jolts her mother and ripples the air

The mother chuckles softly, calming the vibrating air

She will never know the daughter’s inner thoughts, but she assumes they are of love

She nods quickly to the daughter’s request; “Can we make this one have a smile?”

The mother remembers the day she became selfless, left behind the label “girl”

The day she met her daughter, shedding her pumpkin belly like so many women shedding so many pumpkins

The mother wonders in awe at the quickness of time, just as her mother must have been awed at how quickly she had grown

The daughter contemplates how long it took the fruit to be ripe and grown

She pushes away the guilt of picking a wisened orange orb and sniffs at the air

She is very sure that there must be fairies living here, amongst the pumpkins

The daughter knows pumpkins are something which fairies love

It is very logical and must be true; she will enlighten her mother, thinks the girl

She pictures searching the maze, searching for fairies with her mother and this brings a smile

The mother takes notice of the lovely girl’s smile

She notices, humored, that with each smile of her daughter, her own has grown

She laughs at the fairy theory, and gets down on her hands and knees beside the girl

Together, their breathing makes a sauna in the air

The mother asks her child “Which pumpkin will you have, my love?”

The girl thinks it’s like choosing a star, having to pick just one of the millions of pumpkins

Although the girl can not see it, her own features now resemble these pumpkins

Her eyes are huge spheres and cheeks ruddy from cold, the crease of a pumpkin, her smile

She thinks now that every time she sees a pumpkin, she will think of fairies, mothers, and love

She is correct, as time passes, she will always have these thoughts, even after she is grown

A breeze tickles the necks of the mother and daughter, causing them to giggle at the teasing air

Two souls engaged by a moment, a woman and a girl

All little girls grow from pumpkins

The mother’s smile at this thought seems to give the tickling air pause

A daughter grown, a daughter growing, in a pumpkin patch, finding fairies and love