The Daughter

The words came.
Some lovely.
Some stilted.
Some crisp, others mundane.

The scholars said, “Write what you know.
Forget about the need for rhyme.”
Yet, the words came.
Some lovely,
Some stilted;
all searching for their place on the paper.

They said, “Write what you know.”
I know of astounding beauty,
so willowy and graceful.
Who’d have thought this child of mine
to such womanhood would grow?
And still the words came.

They said, “Write what you know!”
I am a mother.
I know everything and I know nothing
and it is my duty to pass knowledge on
to she who is so perfectly bathed in humility
that she is wiser and more powerful
than I had ever hoped to be.

I write what I know.
She is my daughter
and I
am unworthy
of her goodness.


Summer 2000