Four years ago, she helped move soil
from one garden bed to another, a bare-handed
nine-year-old child and today she is thirteen
going on twenty-one, grown like a weed, my
babygirl a little woman as I plead with the world
to let her alone and take her in, allow her to spin
song and fertilized thought –
my flower offspring who brings
me presence each morning, and
when she was born, I counted each
hand full of piano fingers and once
I knew all were there, I dared to let her
play and today, I hear the vocalist on stage,
digging into roots, harmonizing with the garden
she has become.
