My daughter rides the swing, hoisting her body high
as the evergreen’s middle branches
where a sparrow tilts his head and teeters
on the edge of shade, the sun waiting
                                    to illuminate his song.

I watch my child jump, flinging
her angular shape into air.
For a few seconds, she’s exposed to raw light,
the glare a white clove of garlic
warding off the pain she has felt
when confronting crowds or open space.

Soon she lands, her shadow marking
two o’clock in the sand. This is
the fourteenth hour, the fourteenth year
of her life. Now she is gleeful

twisting blonde hair in-between
fingertips that have untangled
a swing chain and the strong linkage
                                    of nerves.

The sparrow must have sung but still
I want to draw a circle around her soul
keeping out the darker voices
                                  of a cold wind and crow.



©2006 by Wendy Howe