These Hours

Though I have no natural-born children of my own, I am often inspired by the parental bonds of other people. One woman poet I know described how she was anticipating her fortieth birthday, with both dread and joy. She hated getting older but was grateful for the life-wisdom she could pass onto her daughter. The girl was heading for adolescence and entering that season of uncertainty that emerges from the frozen comfort of chilhood to the unsettling thaw of maturity. A time when the day lengthens literally and so does the young female’s understanding of herself and life. And for the mother, it is a season of renewal, stretching down into the ground work of her past and watching familiar roots command new growth. These hours are special. They coinside with nature’s transitiion from the old year to the next, from ice metling into water and pause stemming into vital reflections.

These Hours

The light stays longer, shining
through the louvered pines.
You push back your hair, bare your face
to the gold inferences of time.

Days have aged, grown patient –
more aware of twilight’s mood,
her shades of thought
are slung between the hours
of spring and winter, grass and snow.

Another year breathes, awakens
your best season yet
of songs and womanhood
fate will soon pass on
to a daughter. Her flower evolves

from your silhouette --
smooth and boundless
as she seeks the wind,
as she slants the sun in her favor.