Sunday Uncle

Mosey wasn't really, in that first childhood, our uncle. Maybe a second cousin, or a thirty-second. Uncle Mosey came over at dusk on Sunday. His pockets bulged always with the same presents: pine-nuts still in the shell, and Hershey chocolate kisses, silver wrapped. Unfolding the silk-smooth silver took all our skill. "Thank you, Uncle Mosey!" we cried, teeth crackling the first shell, munching the meat, cracking the second. Expected, hoped for, his gifts were the same as ever, Sunday on Sunday on Sunday. Sabbath suspense swelled throughout a Sunday. Would Mosey bring the usual miniature silver mosques in one pocket, the same blond-coffined seed-buds in the other? Dear Uncle Mosey, you teased us for a second or two, as you pondered whether to shell out nuts or candy first. Love in a nutshell offered in one palm, a ceremony, a Sunday covenant. Bliss beckoning from the second great opened fist: familiar shapely silver turrets. How you surprised us, Uncle Mosey, by treating us always the same! Small as we were, we treasured the same twilight moment. Don't let it change. No shelled pecans for us. No caramel, mint. No uncle but Mosey, Mosey, Mosey. And always Sunday promising wheat-color and silver- color at sundown: no earlier, hardly a second later. How the young heart hugs split-second recurrences: every repetition yielding the same return. Moon on time. Little silver stars in place. Milkweed shell splitting punctually. And every Sunday sundown prompt with our favorite uncle. Now in second childhood let the shell of memory hold the same taste of a Sunday silvered with seasons and a steadfast uncle.