A Portrait of Grief

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A Portrait of Grief

When the lean shadows speed before the sun

And the mist returns to its white cavern

And the trees wake; when the ants, one by one

Follow and seek, go seeking Day's tavern

While the mice scurry home, and the fingers

Of the muslin daisy open here-there,

Wildly scattered, and the old barn limbers

His patched roof in the warming of the air;

When the robin tumbles from sleep and goes

Rocketing into light, and the grey wind

Combs the willow fur and ruffles the rose;

When gracefully, gracefully the russet-finned

Lilac settles her house and the dawn's cup

Is full, where are the small hands reaching up?

S. Bert Kingsley

My daughter would have been fifteen today. Fifteen. What would that have been like? What would we have talked about on a day like today? What would she have wanted to do on her birthday? As we brought flowers to her grave, my son asked me, "It's her birthday, are you happy?" A loaded question. Who do I miss - the baby she was, or the young woman she would have been? Who was and is she? Even that is elusive. I loved, and love her, she was there, we were together, all of that really happened.