Two pieces of middle school art hang in the house, one from each son created three years apart. Each has a crescent moon in the upper right. A mountain. A bird.

The first: silver etched on black--a crane on one leg, and the moon hung between the mountains and the viewer. He worried at his mistake. No mistake, I said, to have the moon within our reach. This picture would not be as interesting were the moon in its expected place.

The second drawing in colored pencils and markers: a bright hummingbird to the left nearly as large as the giant moon to the right. A boy lying on the hill, a small brown tree, a waterfall. This artist too worries at his mistake: the tree squashed into the little space he’d left at the top of the hill. But the scene is so calm, the tree must be as it is.

These are wild guys who drew Ninja Turtles and bombs from planes, knights and volcanoes. These bird and mountain pictures were not the usual thing. I look at their art and see the outer expression of an inner serenity I trust remains within each boy-now-man, to hold steadfast through the mystery, ‘mistake’ and challenge of life. Such art touches on the universal stillness within us all.