CREATIVE WRITING: Poetry

For Daughters
by Larry J. Knight, Jr.

Love was the beauty in our child’s eyes
that sparkled each time she gazed,
the emotion that overwhelmed
when she opened the tiny frame of her mouth
to whisper sweet sounds of infancy;
there is something about the birth of a child,
something spiritual,
like Sunday’s dawn,
newborn sunrays stretching across the sky,
something mystic
witnessing the birth of consciousness,
seeing her tiny eyes open
peer through the film of innocence,
hearing her small gasps for air,
her heart beating for the first time;
watching her flaccid muscles trying to move,
tiny fingers attempting to grasp;
experiencing the moment of human genesis,
the first signs of life,
the sign of God at work among us-

from the beginnings of time
we have adored her,
elevated her to a place in our hearts;
we reflect on her place in history,
her role as a manifestation of what we’ve longed to be;
when she played on the banks of the Nile,
we loved her;
when she drew tiny circles in the wet sand,
we saw our future;
when she stood on the wide-open plains,
arms stretching to envelope the whole world,
we saw in her eyes the vastness of a dream-

now she graces our lives
and love is the warmth of her first embrace,
the majesty of her first sentences,
the fragile grace of her first steps;
she is the joy of our mornings,
our first daughter whom we heap our hopes upon,
a treasure of affection,
the jewel that adorns our hearts,
our gift from heaven,
forever bestowing
upon us
her blessings of destiny.