We walk along the oak-lined paths
your tight-paced step soon leaving dad and me
behind to the mumble of our casual words.
We find you motionless by the boundary wall.
Twenty-five Novembers have now passed
and still each one you have mourned for her,
your damaged child too soon gone from you,
your daughter of twelve days of infant life.
Mother, I have wished with every breath
to restore her to you, strong and whole.
I who was born from those days of loss,
for the small child lying in the angel’s plot.
1995