This is a poem that I started writing in my head while the girls and I were driving to the store.  Rosie, age 5, was practicing the tin whistle, while Paloma, age 4, was just talking nonstop to no one in particular in the very back of the van.  I only caught about 20% of what she was saying, and only about 3% of that made any sense at all… 

Practice

In the car,
her older sister practices
(over and over the same song
with perfect determination
and heroic resolve,
tireless repetition
of the exact combination
of sounds)
the Irish whistle.
while she,
in the back-buckled corner
of the family van
practices conversation.
A music all its own
The instrument,
a four-year-old-voice
ebbing and flowing
a little river of ideas
moving swiftly over
rocks of reason,
barely touching
then rushing
on to sea.