Another Spring. . .

Written 2 years ago, the poem below is as true this year as it will be each year of the future you will never see, my darling.

But this too is true—that you live in every word of it, Soph. You are in every thought, in every word I write.

For one of the things you taught me, beautiful child, is the discipline of choosing light over darkness. . . the necessary discipline of shaping from sorrow a painful beauty.

Another spring, and the maple tree
Where last night’s stars, those glittering baubles,
Tangled pendant in unleaved arms,
Is greened today bole to bough, its new shoots
Midwived ex nihilo into morning, born overnight,
Hands thrust out to the light, all this infant life.

Another spring, and in underwood places
Small white flowers, three-sided stars,
Each tiny, perfect, delightfully precise,
Make galaxies and constellations of themselves
In green heavens gathered beneath shadowing trees.

Another spring, and bush wrens flitter
Beside me tree to tree, male and female
Coupled now in joint endeavour; such frail creatures,
Little bundles of bone and feathers, and if you held them
Such tiny beating hearts, such tiny beating fluttering hearts,
So present in insignificance, so determined by life.

Another spring, I cannot help but see it.
Another spring, in which the world of things
Begins again, living helix twined anew.
Another spring, my darling.
I hear the drumbeat of it.

Another year, another spring,
Another spring, without you.

leaf XLI   (from Leaves: Poems for my daughter)
by r nugent