Morning, Summer

(for Trudy* and Emily, mother and daughter)


I.

Morning -- my life.

The sun explores the sky
tentatively
blushing
as though it has never encountered it before.

I stretch, too.
And though this day is also new for me,
this season,
this territory,
the encounter does not frighten me
or shame me
for I have just been born
this day, each day.
I know I am young and relish it.
I know I am strong,
unscarred,
unafraid.
I know just enough to make me smile
with the private power
of the undaunted.

The explorer knows this power,
as does each tree.

I stretch each day a little further
not hesitant at all,
in fact, impatient
to define my boundaries,
though I would shrink
to know that's what I seek.
Limitation --
an empty word now, with no meaning
for me
yet.

New ground for me,
old territory for you.

My roots are feet I haven't grown into.

My roots,
they run so deep
only passing carelessly through
your loamy, nurturing orchard earth,
stealing nutrition
all unwitting
from your discovered cultivated lands.
My fingers are branches
poking, caressing -- and grasping --
the dawn of my becoming.

II.

Summer --
this is the full and blooming summer
of my time.
I will harvest all summer long.
I will not notice when autumn comes.
Like each bright,
long and temperate
summer day,
I do not know how old I am.
Am I halfway through my time,
or just beginning?
Surely only a minute has passed
since I was born
this day,
this year.

Each fruit I pick is new,
and each is me.
I have only learned just now
how to be brave,
and now that I have learned
what courage is,
that I have had it
all along.

I have only learned just now
that fear,
which I have always known,
can be an ally
of courage,
informing it,
shielding it from waste.

And so I learn
only now
so many things --
that fear is old,
courage young,
and as the old and young,
each must ever strive,
one for connection -- protection --
one for distance -- independence --
between the two.

And so I learn
only now,
as you rise and ripen,
something new
under my old friend
the summer sun
in my familiar sky,
passionately questing
for the essential you,
gathering your own fruit
from many trees
in many orchards I still pick from,
that it is
as I have always known
and you will rediscover:
that you are part of me, too,
my brightest fruit of all,
my strongest branch,
longing to be a whole tree,
not to be picked
but to bestow from a distance
above and away --
but not too far.

III.

Eventually,
if unclipped,
if not trimmed
to fit a shape, an image,
all branches
and all roots
like reaching, longing,
and at last, embracing
arms
grow together
into one
inseparably woven
living circle of support.

At some point,
giver becomes gatherer
in order to give more.

That point is now.
Morning, summer.


*Trudy died of breast cancer in 1998. This poem was written as a present to her celebrating first birthday after her diagnosis and mastectomy. The world is meaner and uglier without her in it.

by Sara, copyright 1999, all rights reserved