from SUNLIGHT: A SEQUENCE FOR MY DAUGHTER

David Ignatow

I am proud of your soft, brown eyes
looking at me to understand my presence.
You have smiled and you have thrown your hands
and legs into the air in a rhapsody
of well being and I have followed
with laughter, awed to think it is possible
to be as small as you and yet human,
for I have confused love with size,
and you look at me steadily
when I cluck and coo.

I am proud of your brown eyes
I have not known could be so soft
and questioning, and I lift you
from the crib to carry you cheek to cheek
to see if I can rub your gentleness on me.