VISITATION — A poem for my daughter

VISITATION

They arrived just as morning sun broke the thin layer?

Of green and pink clouds on the horizon.

Hidden in plain sight and tucked away

In the gnarled tree line nearly invisible

Until they moved.

Two young deer out for breakfast

Walking one in front of the other

Slowly and quietly testing with each step

Whether the way was safe.

Like strange and beautiful creatures emerging

From another world, they step only for a moment

Into ours before receding back into their own.

A third deer strode to the edge of the tree line.

Stronger, more powerful and graceful than the others,

She was magnificent, fearless, confident in her safety

Yet hard to see, standing firm now like a tree.

Her face shined like cool moonlight coming from within

As if shaped by winds and rivers and a wildness very old.

She watched the others but did not join, unmoved

And marvelously calm, present.

Sometimes, if we are fortunate,

The one we think we are gives way to the one we want to be?

While a third — who we actually are — stands serenely by

Not waiting but allowing, neither forcing herself?

Nor resisting, but letting the gravity of her beauty and grace

Be enough.?

I would not have known enough to look for her

Let alone recognize her

Had I not known you, in whom and through whom

She first appeared.

????A poem for my daughter — DH