Love & Mourning

Gone. Twenty small children. Innocence. Twenty six families. Trust. Christmas....

My daughter Jessica hugged her three boys very tight tonight. She will protect them

as I will protect her. 

I wrote this poem maybe six or more years ago. I've posted it before. Tonight, what more

fitting than to share a love so deep in me that there is nothing, nothing that can stop it. 

My daughter. Our children.....

Jessica

Take both eyes, both hands,

My legs and arms, 

Even take the precious German clock

And every special book.

Take my bank account,

All twenty photo albums,

My garden in August

And the miraculous April rain.

Take it all if you can promise. 

I knew in the instant this would be so.

I’m in to any burning house,

On to a frigid raft at sea,

I’m ripping the mangled steel with my bare hands.

Anything, anything for this girl.

The edgeless corners of the truest love

And the endless reserve of cavernous protection

Surround this child who lives within and without,

This fantabulous kid with the crack up wit

And the tender expansive heart.

Take it all, whether you are a son-of-a-bitch

Or an evolving angel, 

Whether the cost is temporary or forever,

Take it all, and then shelter this child

Through every molecular motion and moment. 

She sits at a desk 

And she finds little bargains at the malls.

She eats salads at Bugaboo Creek and 

On Sundays brings Sprite to her grandmother.

She is an anchor in an unsteady world.

She is hybrid fuel to those who love her.

She is a reason to push

And the forever foremost answer

To everything that could ever matter

Given the chance to love like this, 

The price of my sightless limbless body

And wiped clean barren possessions

Amounts to nothing more than shiny pennies and

And effortless will. 

That’s all. That’s everything.