Listening to My Heart

She pauses one afternoon while we are playing and shouts, "My heart is beating!"
As if surprised, and looking for reassurance from me.
What is it like to realize for the first time that a small muscle in your chest is keeping rhythm?
What is it like to live a life where so much of your experience is Realizing For the First Time?
I press her small palm against my chest and the room becomes suddenly still.
"Your heart is beating" she tells me, in a quiet voice.
The cars rumble outside, the washing machine shifts to the rinse cycle in the basement, but
For a moment, we lock eyes and feel each other's hearts.
And then she leaps up and pulls out another block from the box, and chatters on about the castle she is building.
Like all especially magical moments of childhood, it is fleeting and soon to be forgotten.
By all but the mothers.