Gifting Children

Two children
Crouch in sand at water's ebbing edge,
Silhouettes and sparkle.
Perfect bodies
So small amid wide gold, blue, white shimmer.
Their babble scatters on the wind,
Like dust flecked across the sunlight.
Head bent, intent,
Digging for the perfect shell
She offers him on sandy outstretched palm.

At dusk in a back garden
They fly in whirling abundance.
Tag and song and innocence,
The children's laughter
Peels above the darkening grass,
Weaving through the leaves.
Movement calling forth the moon.
Dancing with the firefly
He offers her on smooth outstretched palm.

In soft vertical snowfall
The children walk,
Bundled and booted.
Steady, even child paces paired,
Quiet in gray, white, and branches.
A song of intuition, of knowing,
Moves unseen between the stillness.
As silently they pause and trade
Two snowflakes tongue to tongue.

Two children journeying.
Within the other
They recognize such similar scars,
Such similarly born strengths.
A globe of radiant wonder
Floats between them,
Riding on the interchange.
Theirs is a mutuality of healing.
Each accepting gifts
Offered on a kindred soul's outstretched palm.

Oh, will they ever,
Can they ever fully comprehend
Those married forces of Moon and Fate
That pull the tide and days and winds
Over them, rhythm, onwardly threading.
Drawing lives together, drawing them apart,
Moon and Fate drawing up the blanket
To tuck them in at night.


Copyright © 2009 by Helen Sumerwell All rights reserved