Fall

 

And here’s a photograph of me

  Lying beside a waterfall in a wood

With one golden shoe on

   The other dangling from my toes

And the you that’s here is the you

    From nineteen-ninety one,

My daughter, minutes before

     You take your first steps

And I am reading a book, and you

     Are suddenly older, resting

Your hand in the cold stream of water

     Turning your hand as if

It were made out of glass and your

     Vocation in the world was

To wash it until the drop of ivy,

     The veil of mosses,

The gleaming rocks, appeared inside it

     And I take of my golden shoes

Tread the wet grass to be beside you

     My baby again, bite on your fingers

So gently, tickle your palm, gaze

     Through it at your face, the sky’s core,

The giddy meandering water