firecracker girl turns 2

Ada, our 4th of July baby. I’m returning to something I wrote after she arrived. I made it up of course. I imagine it will be a few more years before she can tell me what it was really like.

The Daughter’s Song

I swim through the darkness, always upward, my eyes open,
looking ahead through the streaming dark water
to the wavering image of my father, smiling,
holding my eyes as I kick to him.
He knows the joy of my kicks and wriggles,
my speed in the water,
my delight at finding myself here,
and once more, a girl.
I rejoice in my strength,

reach for him through my image,
my image held, once again, as a twist of wind on water.

For a split second his blue eyes and broad smile overlay mine,
we see through each others eyes,
I touch his face, his rough beard, his strong hands take mine
and the image wavers but the love never does.

The wind whistles around us, singing the song it always sings
when I come back in. The birth song of ending, of beginning,

of having and holding, finding and releasing,
letting go and losing and finding and touching and singing

and losing and finding again.