(and Yielding to Lord Byron)
Oct. 10, 2002

There will be no more posting this week. I'm leaving town to go watch my daughter participate in an athletic event for her university. I haven't seen her in a while, so not much else interests me at the moment. I was thinking of her the other day, remembering those times when I used to pick her up after school (high school), and the way she strode toward me across the school yard, usually wearing one of her long dresses that lent modesty, elegance, and serenity to her bearing. Her gaze was aimed downward -she was often in another place that we couldn't fathom, so we called it "Bernadette-land," but it seemed mostly a good place - until she neared the car, at which point she looked up to flash that smile that knew she was the light of more than one life. I want to offer the following poem because it reminds me of her. I wish I'd written it, but I don't mind yielding to Lord Byron just this once:

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent

As to the other child, she is also performing - in a ballet for her university. That place is very far away, and her mother will be in attendance. But I was thinking about her as well recently, last night, in fact, about something that happened to her as a child of perhaps six or seven. Funny how out of control memories sometimes are; one just comes to you unbidden. She is as tender of soul as her sister and equally as beautiful, so I treasure them all. The incident seemed horrible at the time, but in the calm, recuperative aftermath, I put down a brief record of it. Besides, she has a boyfriend now, and he needs to know what kind of character he's dealing with.

Elizabeth One Day

               From her very first step she was wild and freewheeling,
               Never running when she might be cartwheeling,
               Always running when she might be walking,
               Never silent when she might be talking.
               At the age of four she asked of me
               (Hanging upside down in the crabapple tree –
               Earning the sobriquet ‘Ebie the Monkey’ - 
               Feet to the sky, head to the ground,
               The earth was up, the sky was down),
               "Daddy, can I learn to water ski?"
               At five she wanted to go to the moon
               (And nothing she wanted could happen too soon),
               By six to capture a jungle cat
               For a pet. "But noone can do all that,"
               Said I to the astronaut, hunter, and acrobat.
               But did she believe me? I leave it to you
               To convince those eyes of visionary blue
               That could not set a sight too far -
               (She had plans to become a ballet star).
               One day from the swing set: "Daddy, watch this!"
               She cried with a zeal that could not miss
               The black ring she grabbed, swung off into space,
               When a look of surprise came over her face
               (She had taken in the past many lumps to the pate,
               Her smile undimmed in the teeth of Fate) -
               For on this day, in spite of her charm,
               She could not hold, and broke her left arm,
               Fell from the heavenly blue of the sky.
               As a bird's broken wing still longs to fly,
               Time later for a girl to wonder why
               Each child with fortune must keep her date - 
               But not for a father to contemplate
               Why this one is not more cautious of late.