For my daughter

Cara

I once watched you as you softly slept, heart swelling with each sweet tiny sigh,
And I prayed for you a garden swept, clean of sorrow’s bind.
I held you gentle to my thorny breast, beheld my father in your face thereby,
My vain imagining possessed, of whither and what viney paths you’d find.

My daughter, my pride, my day, this punishing storm torments.
I know not why you turned away, what set your heart this way afire.
But I know this page, this clannish flame, rages inward wild and burns without relent.
Unchecked us both it’s sure to claim, fed on pride and hurt and ire.

Out of the storm and away now I say, into the garden swept,
Let’s choose to opt that other way, that way where peace is found.
What strife we once saw as real, lay now in cobwebs the dust has kept,
And the forward way is just to heal, to plan whither and what viney paths abound.