'I AM INFINITAS!"

here is
our wooden
O

it is
our zero
yellow

there is a 7
...but
it is missing

the puppy's
chewing
an orange 2

"Puppy...
. . .puppy
noooo!!!!"

the admonished
puppy
looks astonished

"This is a good
chew this orange 2."
it whimpers

she her self is four
and
...a little bit more

"When will I be
this one?"
"That's an eight!" I tell her

"It will take you four more years...
...of being you
to be it!"

The 8 has fallen
shhhh on its side asleep
...become an infinity

"Ahhh...infinitas!"
my little infant this
is what...you really are.

this unboundedness
of you
an infinity of you

forever after when
asked what age she is
she'd always answer

with a hearty laugh.
'I AM
INFINITAS!"

*

She had danced and sung and sung and danced. Now she was tired she retired to her favourite place...climbing up on my lap and treadling like a kitten she settled down to watch Kirk Douglas with me. Kirk was being Spartacus and everyone was claiming to be him at this juncture. She had heard the famous line as "I AM SPARK PLUGS!" and now rested from her exertions of watching and trying to make sense of a Hollywood movie...she ran around all over again dancing and singing: "I'M SPARK PLUGS...NO I'M SPAR K PLUGS!"

I used to teach her her letters and her numbers by means of a peashooter and wooden coloured alphabet and gaudy colourful numbers. Rather like Sir Thomas Moore teaching his daughters their letters by means of archery. The 8 lying down and having a rest and becoming an infinity symbol led to her next great statement which she always loved to proclaim as her little self identity..."I....AM...INFINITAS!"

THE FOREVER FLOWER

she hands me a stalk
"The flower's dress
fell off!"

"Fix it!" she cries
I by sleight of hand
fix her flower but with a different colour

"It's a different colour!"
"The flower..." I tell her
". . .changed its dress!"

this flower
with its dress fallen off
I hold forever

SCATTERED DREAMS

Whenever I fell
asleep

my father came
cupped me in his hands

carried me to bed

as if I were as precious
as water

in a hot dry land

or draped like discarded clothing
on a couch...in a garden
on a bench or a beach

I would be gathered up

& awake to find myself
back in the safety of my own bed.

And I would have thought
I had flown

or being magically
transported by a spell

but it was only
the ordinary

magic of my father

cradling me
in his arms

gathering up the littlest
of my scattered dreams

stroking my hair

& tip-toeing backwards
out of the room

his voice
full of tenderness

casting a spell

“Good night son...goodnight...goodnight.”

I'm afraid that if I die

People wont know things only I know

Like how N likes their carrots

Or how L loves her dad

Only I know this, like this

Of course others know some of this too, some of the time

But no one

Not one single person knows that you

You two

Are perfect

I mean this literally

I was gifted this knowledge when you were born

I know this viscerally, like this.

Or that you're beautiful in ways that make me hate words

In ways that render language hollow, meaningless, obscene

I am not being dramatic.

And also that you are good

By which I mean loveable

Like very and always

Fundamentally, inherently

This is not something you can ever change even though you'll probably try

And you might convince other people

Maybe even your dad, or your therapist, or your lover, or yourself

But you'll never convince me

I don't know why

I just know this

And I need you to know this too

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

she's a mere three
demands to know
"...the history of me..."

well, now I say
that was a long time ago
"...try to remember..." she pleads.

I remember when you
first came out of your shell
hatched into a lovely little girl

you were my duckling
everywhere I went
there you were

I could hear you cry
even before you cried
you made me a good daddy/mummy

your dreams
staining the blue
pillow with golden curls

every night the moon
would come to our window
just to take a peep at you

one day your name
perched upon you
and never flew off again

you were a fairy story
I had never heard before
and wanted to hear more

once when you fell
you hit the road
"Naughty road for falling me!"

"No I never!"
she squeals
"Oh yes you did!" I tickle

"Is there any more of me?"
"Oh loads...loads more
but I too old and tired!"

"Well..!" she tells her dolls
"He tells a good story but
shhh...it's not all true!"

the dolls gasp in disbelief
having drunk  down
the dregs of every detail

I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A WAVE

she brings me
the sea to see
in her tiny hands

tamed in blue buckets
the captured sea
sleeps beside her bed

*

It was the first time she saw the sea and she patted it like a pet and said; "See...sea my friend!" The sea fell in love with her and she fell in it.

Her mother was sick and couldn't make it down to the shore so Tilly kept trying to bring back the sea for her to see. But alas the sea would trickle through her little hands so nothing survived the journey. She kept trying and repeating " See the sea Mammy...see the sea!" or "I have brought you a wave!"
She managed to smuggle some sea home in her bright blue bucket with the red stripe and she kept it by her bedside because it was her friend. She would also sleep with twigs and stones and shells she had also befriended that day. She regarded everything as a sentient being and loved them all equally. To her a stick or a stone had as much right to a life as a human being or a bee. I think she believed that we are all here in this moment and so all living beings sharing the same place in the universe. Loving and kindness was her religion and she practiced it daily and embraced everyone and anything she saw.

The roots' reaching efforts, remind me of children. Attractions of my own bear similar fruit.
When a single note is played, somewhere a song responds.
And so the children continue to sprout and my own mind's seeds are past flowers.
Hanging ripe in the light of a sun of ours.
I know you know me, but please don't close your eyes.
The best pillow I've had, is the warmth of your thighs.
My favorite sin is that little white lie,
that makes me laugh when I look in your eyes.
My emotions hinged like a door in the weather.
It's the things you don't see that keep it together.
Not your lover's lament or your daddy's old leather.
The way that you feel when you follow a feather.
Simply there in the hair of a sun of ours.

Like an abandoned creek bed
Hosting a river for a day
Or a desert sky
Screening a rain storm matinee
A parent will wait
No matter time passing
With a heart that remembers how
When our children need us to be strong