You are a man now, sturdy,
Kind,
Smiling in the summer of your days.
She is a shy, wild-April child,
Uncertain,
Wondering at the welcome in your eyes,
The sunlight’s touch.
Your warmth floods over the green-skin buds,
Uncasing a wakening heart
That flowers in your gentleness.
Her lifting petals tremble, just a little,
In trusting to your summer’s kiss.
You are a man now, sturdy.
You have the golden hair of the harvest sun,
A burning strength in your arms;
But your eyes are tender...
I, too, love my daughter.
Will you wait, a little longer,
For my shy, wild-April child?
(September,
1983)
