To My Daughter

I’m addressing this poem to you because

I've seen you turn words inside out

To bend them toward your meaning, toward

The infinity you're dreaming of--

Wide open to the universe, you work

To wrap your mind around the limits

Of this enterprise, but at your best your soul becomes

A tuning form that resonates with love--

Your mind is always climbing the invisible ladder

That in my quiet moments I still imagine myself climbing up,

Hand over hand into the sky, never reaching the thing

I am striving for.

I remember when my bones were a cradle for yours,

Before you were born, and after,

And how nothing could crush you without crushing me too.

It’s still true. But now you’re you.

Most of the time, I am lost in my thoughts,

Feeling my being in the wrap of time, and stretching my hands

Outside of it into the dark, looking for the spark

Of the infinite, and I see you doing that too.

I hope you find it if I don’t. I hope time never wraps its ropes

Around your being too tightly. Because you exist

Outside the scope of all of this, and you rightly deny

The pull of time’s demands. You stand

With one foot in this world and one in the other,

And I can never lay claim to your future, but as your Mother,

I want you to know that I see you.