There's This Place in Our House

Not even a place really.

More of a spot.

It's not pretty.

Nor romantic.

Not even whimsical.

It's usually filthy.

The dirtiest spot in our house by many definitions.

However,

it is also the Dream Catcher,

the evidence,

the confession of a day here in Kidtopia.

You see,

it lies beneath the little creators when they do some of their fiercest work.

They make art above the spot.

And,

the most amazing things trickle down.

Here, in the spot lie the entrails of all the day's activities.

If you were to swab it and put a sample in a Petri dish

from it might spring:

A sticker fight, a costume explosion,

and a vegetable jello tree.

You might grow

a  partially gagged up crayon

and part of the rainbow coloured on the inner walls of a stomach.

You might spot a fur ball tumbleweed laced with labradoodle and sprinkles,

(all traces of incidental cheese snacks dropped by toddlers

so lavishly devoured by dog as to leave not a trace,

microscopic or psychic)

Puzzle pieces, beet juice stained play dough,

buttons and thread

and all number of evolving bits.

It's really quite the spot.

In the past,

I confess that with an air of curmudgeon

I have swept this spot away each night when the sighs are of sleep

and the sky is mulberry.

In the day I have pruned it and plucked various choking hazards

both willy

and nilly

from the vortex of the spot.

It's only lately

that I have begun to mine the spot for the tales it tells.

It's only lately that I have begun to read the poetry on the floor.