SHE AND I

Sitting by the stilled pond, I am startled
by the earnest green eyes gazing up through me
to the tall pine tree, imposing trustee
of my childhood home and innocence.

She is nine, has just learned how tender
her guileless heart toward a young kid in need,
the joy of its gamboled frolic at her
approach. She gazes skyward

never imagining herself salt-and-peppered,
awed still by the promise of nature
as in her youth. I quell an urge to touch her cheek,
the soft slope of its sadness dragging her down,

unnoticed, into ‘not good enough.’
For what, I want to ask? Good enough,
I want her to see, to have lived
sixty years more emerged

from invisibility into tangible life —
our three children — whom I suddenly wish
she could befriend.  I raise my own eyes
to the trees ringing the pond

none a tall pine, but grand enough
to take me back to these roots,
my natural loves twined together
like our images on the pond’s surface.

sarahw

Not a letter, but true to the prompt in other respects. I wrote this poem years ago in response to a different-but-similar prompt and really like the way it turned out. And, right now, my eyes are burning from so much screen time that I’m needing a break.