It's a still morning, quiet and cloudy <br />the kind of grey day I like best; <br />they'll be here soon, the little kids first, <br />creeping up to try and frighten me, <br />then the tall young men, the slim boy <br />with the marvellous smile, the dark girl <br />subtle and secret; and the others, <br />the parents, my children, my friends -- <br />and I think: these truly are my weather <br />my grey mornings and my rain at night, <br />my sparkling afternoons and my birdcall at daylight; <br />they are my game of hide and seek, my song <br />that flies from a high window. They are <br />my dragonflies dancing on silver water. <br />Without them I cannot move forward, I am <br />a broken signpost, a train fetched up on <br />a small siding, a dry voice buzzing in the ears; <br />for they are also my blunders <br />and my forgiveness for blundering, <br />my road to the stars and my seagrass chair <br />in the sun. They fly where I cannot follow <br />and I -- I am their branch, their tree. <br />My song is of the generations, it echoes <br />the old dialogue of the years; it is the tribal <br />chorus that no one may sing alone.<br /><br />Lauris Dorothy Edmond<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/late-song/
