Green shoots
from your lambent gaze spring green things
scattered light glancing from the patter of your
dancing feet across the wooden kitchen floor
whistling tunelessly and spinning and smiling
you light our hearth with your soul
young yet, your bones grow long and easy,
stretching upward day by day toward the light
reaching eagerly for stars or the highest branches
laughing at the raven's fearsome caustic cries
the only door you open is to love
bone of my bone, blood of my blood,
it is bright spring that you brought with you,
however brief and out of season, with laughing
and glimmering green and shifting hope
and all manner of light to illumine our lives
Written for the word of the day (um, the other other day),
lambent, at Poem of the Day.
posted by MB at 9:15 AM
7 Comments:
"You light our hearth with your soul"
Somehow this seems the heart of the poem to me. The feelings expressed here are familiar to me as a parent, but the expression is entirely fresh.
I don't have a child, and I find this poem very moving indeed. What a wonderful way for you as a parent to celebrate their existence.
Yes, I don't either, and I did too. Very moving. This is so light and flowing, yet it made me gasp. I think this is one that should be published more widely. Not that many of the others aren't also.
Patry, thank you. I think that is the heart of the poem, along with "lambent gaze." There is something about a glancing, changing, shifting, shimmering, kind of light that reminded me of this child.
Thank you, Mary. I'm pleased that you enjoyed the poem. I do indeed celebrate this child's existence, with gratitude and wonder, a real gift in my life. Work, too, no question, but an honor to parent and a marvel to witness.
Jean, thank you for your warm words. I'm glad that you also found it moving. I do too, but I never know how these poems will be received. Others don't always react as I do (which is only to be expected)! Thanks for saying you thought it should receive a wider audience. You are very kind indeed.
I'm not kind (well, I am kind, I hope, but not as a literary critic), I'm hyper-critical and wouldn't define something as a terrific poem just because the subject moves me :-)
Jean, I didn't mean to be dismissive but to express sincere gratitude for what you said and the fact that you said it. Thank you.
there are no time-outs and the clock moves frighteningly fast
It does already, Ken, it does already. Thank you for the reminder!
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