A Name For My Little Daughter

Sunlight, it clings To you, that name, like a butterfly's wings To the quivering dew-wet twig of a rose bush; A naive name— It comes in a quick spontaneous rush To lips long jaded, where it clings— Your right and only name. Oh there are other names, And I can never quite say why, Watching you at your secret games Amid the quivering bushes and plants that rise High as your shoulders and no higher, Why my heart echoes that right and only name. Ah how can you comprehend What chasm stretches between Your silent smiling and These echoing words of mine? Yet I have seen At the bottom of that questioning smile Mile after mile Of pathway that will wind About that chasm; seen The dead ends and the blind Or broken turnings, the many Still unbuilt bridges spanning The spaces of the mind, Which I must cross for what small sense I'll ever make of the multiple questions begging behind This small existence. Yes I am sad; but why Are you sad, child? What makes you cling Now like a frightened butterfly, Silent and hushed against my sunless shoulders? I have done nothing But give you a name, a small, soft name Befitting what you are this moment. Ah yes, you know Now what you cannot comprehend— How all my days must now be spent Finding a fitter name for you— More permanent, And making more sense Of this small existence— Yet yours, and only you.