4.5

4.5 to watch you blossom

Exploding in vivid color like a bird of paradise bloom.

4.5 from way too tiny to oh, so tall

4.5 to see you change from needing to giving

Taking all I have and more but giving me . . . giving more.

4.5 of big failures and big successes

4.5 of doing days together

Thinking of all that number holds, 4.5, delightful child.

You throw her in the air

And for a moment she is not yours --

That moment when you are ready to catch her,

but she isn't falling. . .

Air between your hands and her

Laughing,

How do you let her go?

Nothing makes more sense than an off-side ponytail on a little girl.

V-Musings (Which may be a copy written title)

I have not written. When I break a habit, a plan more, I am most likely to let it go altogether, as if it has lost it's worth. And I can't do that because I must write. And I still haven't written my Purpose Of Writing. So it is much too early to give up. Not sure how to sustain this though, and seriously wondering if it will make any difference if I do. I compare myself, come up lacking and want to wash it all away so that I can pretend I am equal again. Equal by doing nothing.

It is Valentines day and V-day. And I am thinking about how amazed I am by the opportunity to raise a daughter. There is nothing about which I am more passionate. To raise her with dignity and an understanding of worth. To teach her that her femininity is a treasure, her vulnerability a prize - that none of this should be exploited or used as a weapon against her. To show her how to nurture her own soul without violation so that it can never be violated by anyone else. Raising a strong, wise woman who can and will change the world for men and women - - I sat and watched you eat your lunch today in the winter sun and wanted to tell you all this. But your world is still simpler than that, and this is time for showing, not telling. You dropped a noodle and commented that it was shaped like a star, and then corrected yourself. "A human shape, with a star head." Humanity and femininity. Happy V-day, little baby girl.

Father Daughter Dance

I can hear their muffled voice upstairs

Cadence and Call that is all theirs

Neither of them know that they

Are the only spot still sane in the other's awful day

Grabbing on to the only branch

Big and little little

Flitting like their words into each other

safe Here

Father Daughter Dance

I See What She Has Made of Him.

I adore Saturday mornings.

When Baby is Daddy's and I am an outsider looking in.

Never understanding, sometimes questioning, in awe.

Of her little girl love, and his big man strength.

The parts of her that make him soft, and the parts of him that make her tall.

Of the way they talk and walk and play and fight and love

So different from me.

And I think

the greatest gift mom can give girl (now so blonde, so alive, so wild)

is Dad who can love her.

In arms, Dee and Raynie, each the other's whole world, perfectly fit together.

Too many words spoil things, but

it always comes back to this -- I wonder what she will become,

So loved.

You're Fabulous

17 July, 2009