She’s sixteen
with her mother’s eyes,
deep
coffee colored pools .
And her mother’s brown hair,
silk fine and given to curls
in the summer’s humid turning.
She teases me-
My hair, or lack thereof,
An antonym to hers,
Is fair game.
After all, I mock myself,
Too tall for my hair,
Too young for my age,
Too happy to be her father.
She circles her friends around her,
Moths to the light,
Birds in flight.
All elbows and giggles,
Just this awkward side of being women,
Having done the blissful oblivion of childhood.
Still wanting to play but
Trying to pretend she’s too all-that for games,
In her heart trying to grow too soon.
I ache to tell her
Hold on to sixteen, the dreamy,
The intoxicating innocence,
That is its own reward.
One week her legs ache with
An epiphyseal stretch
And next, it’s her heart,
Pining for a boy who has not yet
Even held her hand.
Life seems impossibly luminous,
Stretching ahead a countless dizzying chain
of dazzling days.
Each one greeted with naiveté and charm.
Each sleepy-eyed day dawning
At noon or later.
Each soft evening
Leaning into tomorrow.
Shepherded by books,
The music of her day
And my offerings of Fogelberg or Beethoven
And the inevitable advice
‘when I was a boy’
Which makes her catch her breath
With my tales of reckless fun
For
I too was once immortal.
Now I find
Mortality in my bones-
That ache not with growth
But groan with age.
And yearn to pass my meager wisdom,
My paltry store of myself
To her and to her and to her
For in her later days, she will not want to hear
Any astringent I told you so.
It will not pass my lips
Like bitter water.
So daughter mine,
Gifts come in many packages.
One day the sun wraps one up
In swaying queen Anne’s lace
and sweet scented pink soapwort,
picked from the roadside
While we dallied by a wetland of swaying cattails,
Purple loosestrife and tiger lilies.
The next, a lake and your friends,
Or a book that’s so deep you nearly drown and
Unbecome yourself for days on end.
The gift may come in a sentence
From someone you love.
Beyond loving, from a place that you least expect it,
In sparse humble words
That lean against each other for safety.
Your dad knows little of being a woman-girl
but
He knows a lot about life.
This is his gift to you.
My life
And my love
And all that I am.
And this is my gift to you.
That I love you without reckoning,
Without any reason,
With all the fibrous tendrils and cells of my body,
With every inhale and exhale,
With pulsations madly beneath my skin,
With every tingly neuron sending endorphins
Racing when I see you,
This father loves you.
And this father loves you
Still
not knowing how I came to love you,
Save for watching you grow up,
Save for tucking you in,
And waking you.
Save for taking in your generous smile
And welcome laugh.
Save for reading you stories
Till you could read them yourself.
For holding you when you were sad
And rejoicing, to see you take flight
on a tiny two wheeler, set free from gravity
On an endless flight down the pitted sidewalks,
The sun burned, leaf shaded
Mulberry purpled sidewalks
Of summer.
with her mother’s eyes,
deep
coffee colored pools .
And her mother’s brown hair,
silk fine and given to curls
in the summer’s humid turning.
She teases me-
My hair, or lack thereof,
An antonym to hers,
Is fair game.
After all, I mock myself,
Too tall for my hair,
Too young for my age,
Too happy to be her father.
She circles her friends around her,
Moths to the light,
Birds in flight.
All elbows and giggles,
Just this awkward side of being women,
Having done the blissful oblivion of childhood.
Still wanting to play but
Trying to pretend she’s too all-that for games,
In her heart trying to grow too soon.
I ache to tell her
Hold on to sixteen, the dreamy,
The intoxicating innocence,
That is its own reward.
One week her legs ache with
An epiphyseal stretch
And next, it’s her heart,
Pining for a boy who has not yet
Even held her hand.
Life seems impossibly luminous,
Stretching ahead a countless dizzying chain
of dazzling days.
Each one greeted with naiveté and charm.
Each sleepy-eyed day dawning
At noon or later.
Each soft evening
Leaning into tomorrow.
Shepherded by books,
The music of her day
And my offerings of Fogelberg or Beethoven
And the inevitable advice
‘when I was a boy’
Which makes her catch her breath
With my tales of reckless fun
For
I too was once immortal.
Now I find
Mortality in my bones-
That ache not with growth
But groan with age.
And yearn to pass my meager wisdom,
My paltry store of myself
To her and to her and to her
For in her later days, she will not want to hear
Any astringent I told you so.
It will not pass my lips
Like bitter water.
So daughter mine,
Gifts come in many packages.
One day the sun wraps one up
In swaying queen Anne’s lace
and sweet scented pink soapwort,
picked from the roadside
While we dallied by a wetland of swaying cattails,
Purple loosestrife and tiger lilies.
The next, a lake and your friends,
Or a book that’s so deep you nearly drown and
Unbecome yourself for days on end.
The gift may come in a sentence
From someone you love.
Beyond loving, from a place that you least expect it,
In sparse humble words
That lean against each other for safety.
Your dad knows little of being a woman-girl
but
He knows a lot about life.
This is his gift to you.
My life
And my love
And all that I am.
And this is my gift to you.
That I love you without reckoning,
Without any reason,
With all the fibrous tendrils and cells of my body,
With every inhale and exhale,
With pulsations madly beneath my skin,
With every tingly neuron sending endorphins
Racing when I see you,
This father loves you.
And this father loves you
Still
not knowing how I came to love you,
Save for watching you grow up,
Save for tucking you in,
And waking you.
Save for taking in your generous smile
And welcome laugh.
Save for reading you stories
Till you could read them yourself.
For holding you when you were sad
And rejoicing, to see you take flight
on a tiny two wheeler, set free from gravity
On an endless flight down the pitted sidewalks,
The sun burned, leaf shaded
Mulberry purpled sidewalks
Of summer.
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