THE CHILD - HOPE & PROMISE

Ten Years of April

Your flaxen baby curls
Have turned to cascades of gold dust
Falling like silken water down your back
Chubby toddler legs
Stretch out to streamline
The blooming dance you begin to weave

Should I search your changing face,
Sighing as I see it recast,
Mourning its transformation?
Must I face with fear that new cocoon
That sometimes masks your incandescence?
Shall I weep at the trembling wet butterfly
That will soon emerge
Whispering . . .
“Where has my baby gone?”

Once, when you were only mine
I committed my life
As a pledge to your potential
I cradled your quiescent probabilities
Nurtured the grain of your growing gifts
Then, your eyes were turned to me alone
In undiluted trust

Now, you search
And you scrutinize
You paint
And you ponder
You dance
And you dream
With a growing gift for giving
You aspire to heal each pain filled heart
Conquer prejudice
Blot out injustice
You seek to smother hatred
In a sea of sunshine

And I in humble affirmation
Now give back that trust in full measure
To your seacrystal eyes

Wings of wonder are unfolding
From the promise that lay dormant
In the infant that I loved
My baby is not gone
My child is
Becoming

No
I will not cry
When the chrysalis cracks
For as you lift to dance the air
All the stars in the sky will sing


©Edwina Peterson Cross
March 1992