Anna Chiara
You do not speak my language,
not yet at least.
But your eyes
-dark pools of liquid light-
are big and beautiful.
Were I to compare your eyes
to any precious stone
or any
distant stars
that shed their light
on a summer’s evening,
I would,
as a poet,
be failing you, failing
their beauty.
Some things in life
are true and pointless.
Not you,
nor your innocence,
nor your beauty. You are
who and what you are, and
you are the joy of love
unconfined.
Your tiny hands reach out
as you ask for your drink,
your pert mouth agape,
milk teeth
barely piercing your bony gums.
First steps,
first teeth,
first words:
this is the so-called learning curve
of infancy.
But it is not that simple.
Are parents the first teachers
of their children,
or is it the reverse?
Of love you have nothing to learn
and everything
to teach. There is
love in the first laughter,
the first smile, the first games,
and you will remind us
as you call
to your mother and father that love
is the first and only reason for words.
If beauty is truth -and these are only words-
the love that illuminates
your fresh young skin
will remain everlasting,
and that purest of loves
which makes us
ageless, timeless will
be manifest every day of your life
from here and to eternity.
**27 December 2000**