Holding my flickering candle, I visit your dream, my child, You sleep with the face of amazement, But your breath comes viewless and mild. It brought you no bitter moment That you looked at me with a lour, That you left me alone with my grieving At midnight's anxious hour. And yet! I will rouse you to courage By night, and to life at the flood, Your urge, your powerful striving Runs through my shadow like blood. Oh, son! Your drinking, your eating Is food for your mother, I know. Your cups as they circle are stirring My circle of years in its flow. And when I am sitting and stitching, This life is uplifted and flies To you, and my perishing vision Fades to be flame in your eyes. When I carried you with trembling In the known and yet sacred womb, You gave pain through the days that shaped you, And grew great in the narrow gloom. And, as you left my body For the home and the hearth and the blue, And as in me you were kindled, So I am quenched in you. My life is a self-outpouring Into your rounded light, And aching, I lavish upon you My duty that is your right. Soon shall I be naught but your laughter, Naught but the word on your breath. Ah, let me guard your sleeping, My child, my existence, my death. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NO MATTER WHAT, AFTER ALL, AND THAT BEAUTIFUL WORD SO by HAYDEN CARRUTH SONGS FOR TWO SEASONS: 1. AFTER GRAVE ILLNESS by CAROL FROST FRAGMENTS WRITTEN WHILE TRAVELING...A MIDWESTERN HEAT WAVE by JAMES GALVIN GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: THE ROAD TO BUFFALO by KAREN SWENSON THE DIORAMA PAINTER AT THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY by KAREN SWENSON |