THE CHILD - HOPE & PROMISE

Reality
(For Lezlie at Seventeen)

I saw you in dreams
a star behind a waterfall
crystalline, shimmering
certain
in the liquid fall of eternity
I heard your laughter

And when the doctors
armed with statistics
spoke of impossibilities
and told me not to hope
my heart quietly whispered
“no”

For your reality echoed
on the curve of every sound
in the taste of all four winds
an essence that was tangible
long before
they laid you in my arms

And you grew clear
unclouded, perceptive
knowing and deep
gazing into the well of being
inevitably, undeniably you saw
yourself

Now, I feel your centered spirit shake
under a weight of strain
engulfed by others egos
betrayed by broken trust
Caught in a vice of time and tension
you struggle just to breathe

Reality has been recast
melted molten with your pain
and poured into a nameless mold
your parched tears sear a sky
Gone inky with the portent
of a full stellar eclipse

And I,
who formed you with an unfaltering faith
in my ethereal, concrete dream
now cannot bear the reality
that would take your golden laughter
that would dim your sure, strong star

I would go before you
clearing your path with a heart of flame
I would burn cities to the ground
shake the battlements of the earth
I would disintegrate into dust
anyone who tried to hurt you

And yet, even through this shroud of sorrow
your soft, sagacious spirit
still signs the air with runes of strength
clear, luminous tracings
Which glitter fearlessly and whisper
“Woman”

I bend in humbled abdication
I must yield the keys of pain
into your narrow, able hands
yes, it takes a cloak of darkness
To reveal the radiance
and the mystery of the stars

So, I will be certain once again
my belief in you
the rock of my reality
I will step back and let you grow
I will listen for your laughter . . . and wait
for the renaissance after the rain


©Edwina Peterson Cross
January 1997