by Mary E. Lowd
Spring, 2007
Before a daughter, a time of waiting,
A time before memory.
I walk the halls of my own childhood,
Places and houses only dimly remembered;
I will not find her there
But I think I am looking.
My Uncle’s house; the house on Garfield St.
Places I lived before I lived,
When I mainly lived in another’s eyes,
As she lives in this empty house.
Now is the time and place before her memory.
Even after the waiting; even when she is here,
This house will have the quality not only of a dream
But of the fading memory of a dream.
To her.
Like Garfield St.
And my Uncle’s house to me.
In these places and times, known mostly vicariously,
Perhaps subconsciously, on the edge of our beings,
Before she is my daughter and I am a mother,
Instead we are infants, daughters together,
Proto-minds struggling and reaching,
Waiting to wake up and discover,
In the future, our own selves.
* * *
From the book: Some Words Burn Brightly: An Illuminated Collection of Poetry
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