This morning's pancakes 

with their dribbles

of maples tapped,

dot his chin

 as he toddles 

off to  pre-school,

Later the essence

of cocoa beans

will flavor his ice cream

and speckle his face, 

like brown freckles.

From the very beginning 

between the stirrups 

where he spilled from

 the syrup of afterbirth, 

till this moment of sticky goo

 I have just shared.

 
I have watched him drool, 

masticate and blow bubbles in

 the syrups of cows and coughs,

and snow cones 

as well as Gerbers various 

pre-concocted delights.

Every day he

wears the syrups

 of life on his clothes 

tattooing all he enjoys the most 

in strange patterns

that I must eventually remove.

In his rush to savor

 the sweetness

he often loses

some of the quantity

to lesser stations.

How so much

like life is that,

in our own rush to enjoy

the nectars of life,

we often dribble

much of it away

finding less

in our impatience

and our rush

to inhale more, 

then we would have

if we had only savored 

each and every drop of life 

squeezed from our hearts.

He'll be home later,

splattered with the

various colors of lunch,

in polka dotted sticky,

syrupy patterns,

on his fresh white shirt,

giggling at my

wide eyed gasp, 

as he explains

away every one.

Just a roadmap of his day, 

that we'll surely

ketchup on later.

as I relish the thought.