Some Happiness

For Maisie

I tell my daughter about this pitfall

And that difficulty.

She listens, but it is hard

For her to be patient.

With a kiss, I dismiss her

And she dismisses me.

She is happy. I pick at that

Commonly discredited fact.

It is something I had not thought of,

That love might have this humming, incautious outcome,

That a daughter could be like the sea

In the rain, absorbing the many drops.

She is

All things that steadily, waveringly go.

I am on the shore, kicking at what I know.

There is a day without conclusions.

There is a word without weight.

There is an impulse familiar as skin.

I lay my perils down.

Childhood is a string tied

To a great, remarkable nothing.

We dance

To a music beyond misgiving.