[For my granddaughter, Norah K. Hadley, August 17, 2004 - October 21, 2017--JK]
In my dream you've become a picture
in a book I read with your mom:
Girl castaway, dressed in skins,
with a spear, a dog,
standing on your island cliff,
staring out to where
the sky disappears in ocean.
Forever thirteen,
you wait with perfect patience
though no one is coming.
There is something I must do for you.
I have completely forgotten to do it
these months without you.
We must get there before you vanish!
Later every second,
I search the house for my notes,
wearing just one sock.
Oh, where is the other, and why
can’t I hear what you are humming?
What did I do with your laugh, your
flower-painted toenails? Who knows
how you slept on your mother’s lap
by the nattering TV, or palled around
with Grandma in the kitchen?
Someone must bring your sass,
Your silly, your love of babies
and small pet snakes. Someone else
the clear notes of your voice,
the way your hand tucked into mine.
When we get there I must explain
what no one can:
Why this, why you, why anything;
why waves carve the rocks
while the light leans, and seabirds
whirl in their endless fuss.
My dear, it’s much too hard.
Instead I bring a joke
I memorized yesterday, thinking of you.
But you are in a mood too mysteriously gentle
even to laugh at Grandpa:
Breathing the wind, petting your dog
blaming no one for anything.
Still with your song that never quits
you gaze at something I can’t see
out past the whispering surf
where stars thin the first dark.
