Walk Carefully

Poemata, III

Walk carefully, daughter of mine
The world is not your place to play
There may be no clear-drawn line
In the sand for you to say
To where you may thus safely walk
In either night or brightling day
Though of such we rightly talk;

I know you see what may be done
And think of possibility
And under summer's warming sun
And on the shore and by the sea
So find your bearings to be flown
And cannot find your family
So fear not strike out on your own?

When soon all things appear the same
The switching sand, the lapping tide
And blending every face and name
So find a world both strange and wide--?
When this the time of utmost need
Find you with exhausted pride
Too late it is my words to heed;

I know you are a step ahead
And keep an eye on us as well
And never with disaster fed
Is so fine a sense of smell;
But know the eye's a tiny dot
Upon time's edge, a raging swell
Whose current every mind has caught;

Don't be the ear who hears at last
The coming wind, as down the aisle
Of some lonely shop the blast
Toneless shrieks in that defile
But of the memory -- a sign
Of what we needed all the while
Walk carefully, daughter of mine.