Bray, February 16, 2022
(for Sylvia)
Gosh, where did the time go?
It went, I guess, like always,
in a flurry of days, weeks, years.
Was it really just yesterday I raced
around playgrounds, trying vainly
to keep up with your furious energy
on slides, climbing frames and zip wires?
Alas, a stroke saw to all of that,
so now I can only marvel from afar,
though I sense you’re somehow beyond
such simple delights (they still enchant
your little sister) now that you’re suddenly nine
and, just as suddenly, a grown-up girl
(a reader, too!) with a grace and graciousness
all your own. But try, if you can, not to lose
that child’s sense of wonder, that restless spirit
of enquiiry, that impatience with the nonsense
and unfairness of a world intent on trouble.
May such things not upset you unduly,
and may you remain forever open to the life
you choose to live, true to your own sweet self.
