For today’s prompt, write a wish poem. The poem could be about making a wish or granting a wish. It could focus on the fallout from a wish granted or denied. Or think up a wishful scene to share in your poem. — Robert Lee Brewer
Wishful thinking
I’m sorting through wishes in my head.
Which are worth wishing?
And which are just trouble
masked by hope?
What if Rader were still here?
The longer it’s been, the harder it is
to know what that would be like
he’d be 18
and if he were home from college —
that is, if he went away to college,
another thing we’ll never know —
what would young adulthood have brought him?
Who would he be now?
What would be the challenges
of having him back home with us?
The wish only lets you see
the best parts.
‘Wishful thinking,’
after all,
draws its power from delusion.
I wish I knew
what it would be like
for him to still be with us
the most primal of wishes:
wish you were here.
A couple of weeks ago, when links to virtual museum tours and the like were circulating on social media, as we all tried to figure out how to occupy ourselves at home during the pandemic, I clicked on a YouTube video where Betty White was reading aloud one of my old favorite picture books, Harry the Dirty Dog, as part of a project called StorylineOnline. After watching Betty, I watched another one I have fond memories of: William Steig’s Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, read by Reid Scott.
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is a wishing book, since the magic pebble Sylvester finds is a wishing pebble. I didn’t remember the plot specifically, but the climax of the book is Sylvester’s mom and dad wishing to have him back, because he’s disappeared. Watching the video and listening to the story was bittersweet for me in that sense, because I deeply understand their sorrow and longing. Since today’s theme was wishing, it seemed apropos to mention Sylvester as well.
StorylineOnline has dozens of YouTube videos. I bet some of your favorite children’s books are there as well. They’re also on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.