We circle around you in absolute awe
Adoring your every murmur
Loving you so completely, almost jealous
Wishing we could be so fresh.
I gather you in my hands, an infant saint
You embrace me with innocent reciprocation
Finding sleep easy in my trusted arms.
Not by genetics, but by love, I guard you
Playing mother for the needs you cannot speak.

Now is your beginning, the slow decline of your novelty.
More perfect now than you ever will be,
Rolling around softly in your untried possibilities
Smiling laughing at nothing, everything
You stare out at us whole hearted with wonder.

But one day, you will no longer need to be mothered.
You’ll stretch out your limbs to leave,
Learn the words to wish me goodbye.
We’ll ship you out, a predestined bundle of reeds
Out to float the river, and find a wife to replace me.
It stings to imagine you then, heavy with age.
I wish you would forsake tradition
And remain a tiny ornament of this family
An emblem of purity against the contemporary.

I know you will outgrow your nurturer
But someday I will be the one in need, helplessly tired
And then you will be to me, what I once was to you
The child will become the giver, the plant become the seed.