This poem is from the chapbook Beyond Expectations by Cada McCoy (Finishing Line Press) and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/beyond-expectations-by-cada-mccoy/
Beyond Expectations inspires and heartens when a child, who once fretted bedtime monsters, strikes out to find many great and wonderous things; offers a breath-holding moment as spring fledglings teeter on the edge of their first precarious flight; affirms an aging community’s wry world-wisdom, underscoring the unaltering lines of human nature’s playbook. Even when expectations become reality-dimmed, unforeseen lessons and unimagined gratitude, often tinged with humor, frequently emerge. This collection was inspired by an observant and sage mother of a past generation who resolutely overcame her own society’s presumptions, proving that life always holds promises well beyond our expectations.
Always bouyed and kept afloat by words during careers as librarian, publications editor, independent bookstore owner, these days Cada McCoycan be found in Upstate South Carolina casting her lines into poetry’s tidal streams. What finds the hook is always beyond her most delighted expectations.
The Paddock Review 