Everyday I carry him inside me,
And beside me, like the robin
Who should have gone south,
But is dangerously late to leave,
Eating the berries from my tree.
I carry him to the sink in the morning,
And in the mirror, I see his crease
Above my nose, or the one wrinkle
By my right eye, under his hair.
I carry his burden of wanting to know–
Too much, at the risk of happiness,
Even expecting something bad
All the time, in the midst of good.
What excuse do I have, except being his daughter,
To carry such personal things?
And yet, to lay him down, to walk away
Into the lightness of my own shadow;
I do not want to leave his burden alone.
So, I will stay here and hope
The winter is not too hard,
And that the days, growing longer,
Are not ungenerous to one lost,
Scavenging forgotten berries.
Bits of Poetry 