A few weeks ago, the boys and I took Nana on an adventure. It started out as a trip to a statue in a park, but ended up with us exploring the roads.

At one point, we found ourselves driving on a road through a swamp. The road was narrow and low, and the brown swamp water reached right up to its edge. “Wow,” I said. “The water’s really high.”

“Or the road is really low,” my youngest son said.

“That sounds like the start of a book,” I said. “The road is low, the water is high.”

“Not a book,” he said. “A poem. Let’s do it!”

“Okay. I’ll start: The road is low, the water is high.”

“The moon is shining bright in the sky,” he said.

“The black and white cranes look like they’re going to cry,” his older brother added.

There was a moment of quiet, then I glanced at Nana. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Yeah,” the boys said. “You’re next.”

I recited the poem so far for her.

“We watch them go, with a happy sigh,” she said.

“Your turn, Dad,” my oldest said.

“The water ripples, dark and deep,” I said, “calling us to our long sleep.”

Okay, okay, so I just mangled a line from Robert Frost. Hey, I was driving on a narrow back road through a swamp, trying to remember a poem that was being created on the fly. Give me a break.

“My brother begins to weep,” my youngest son said.

“Hey,” his brother shouted. “No I don’t!”

“It’s gone far enough,” I said. “I’m stealing lines from Frost, and you guys are starting to twist it to take shots at each other. Let’s call it done.”

They agreed.

Here, in all its glory, is our wandering a swamp road poem. Enjoy!

The road is low, the water is high.
The moon is shining bright in the sky. 

The black and white cranes look like they’re going to cry.
We watch them go with a happy sigh.

The water ripples dark and deep,
calling us to our long sleep. 

My brother begins to weep.

Not bad, huh? This may become a new part of our wandering the roads tradition.

[Editor’s note: I apologize for being missing these past two weeks. That’s the longest DaddyTales outage since I started writing them, and it was because of a trip to Germany that I went on for GotChosen. The trip caught me somewhat by surprise, and the last minute preparations consumed all my time. Sorry about that!]