Gently Until Morning
A poem for my son, age 5
you had these big, enormous dreams -
like you’d wake up in the night screaming and
I’d have to hold you until morning
just to calm you down. Sometimes
you’d lie in bed for an hour after waking,
not wanting to talk to anyone, still coming round
from wherever you’d just been;
your dreams were so real
they’d stay with you all day,
as though you half-lived in this other place
where I couldn’t find you,
where I couldn’t stop bad things from happening,
more than you did in the waking world.
The night terrors stopped -
but you always had one foot in the dream world,
you were always partly not mine.
One day, when you’re grown,
I know I won’t always be able to find you,
or to stop bad things from happening.
When that day comes,
I pray the world holds you gently until morning.
Because you never were mine, really,
you just came through me.
And because the world needs dreamers like you, kid.
You came here to dream.
*This poem was originally published in The Howling Owl*
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