My daughter rides the swing, hoisting her body high
as the evergreen�s middle branches
where a sparrow tilts his head and teeters
on the edge of shade, the sun waiting
                                    to illuminate his song.

I watch my child jump, flinging
her angular shape into air.
For a few seconds, she�s exposed to raw light,
the glare a white clove of garlic
warding off the pain she has felt
when confronting crowds or open space.

Soon she lands, her shadow marking
two o�clock in the sand. This is
the fourteenth hour, the fourteenth year
of her life. Now she is gleeful

twisting blonde hair in-between
fingertips that have untangled
a swing chain and the strong linkage
                                    of nerves.

The sparrow must have sung but still
I want to draw a circle around her soul
keeping out the darker voices
                                  of a cold wind and crow.



�2006 by Wendy Howe