for Jean-Pierre & Samuel
I watch you, my child, curled in your cradle of darkness,
sprung from the womb of All Presence: you are a comma
in Creation’s silent roar, namelessly poised on the brink
of a life, anointed by the love of strangers.
And I see you breathing—how each breath blossoms
in fleeting flowers, dappled with the dew of dreams,
and shadowed by shapeless fears.
You are the baffled child of becoming, sung
from the bough of Being: your petals scattering
upon a blue and breathless lake,
the speechless mirror of your loveliness.
I cannot tell who you will become, uncurling
from your foetal comma, emerging into the ellipsis
of the endless days of youth …
How you will write your name
by the exclamation mark of self-hood!
As you grow into the hours, days,
years that embrace or entangle your being,
I wonder, is Time a myth,
and Self, a blank white sheet billowing into forever,
its only inspiration, the question-mark of Who?
May you, my petal child, be free as Silence.
2004
