Birth Day

LOOSEN the shutter, let the light
Flow in and wash against the white
Cliffs of the window ledge. The sky
At dawn is clear. Today my daughter
First wakes beside the sheltered water
Where childhood’s holiday floats by.

You’ll look at life tomorrow, dawdle
Among the sand dunes, count the pebbles,
In the shallows nimbly paddle,
Wallowing in warm pools until
You try your stroke against the incoming swell.
A lifetime’s to be lived before
The sun dips down behind the lull
And lights are strung along the shore.

There will be time, Roxanne, to be
Baptized by fire before the walls
Of Arras; time, Penelope,
To weave your great web in the halls
Of Ithaca while suitors rage.
But this is not the time to unfold
The fabled world which will engage
The imagining of six years old;
Too early even to test the eye
With shadows of reality.
Suck now and learn to smile, a woman’s arm
Still bars the door against the world’s alarm.