Seven

As, you proudly announce that you are seven, the golden autumn light dances in your blue eyes.
You are generous, loyal and brave.
You are funny, clever and cautious.
Like your Father, you run and climb like a fearless cat.
Like your Mother, you love the still escape of reading.
Yet, you are completely your own independent little self.
The world belongs to you and you will run to meet it.
You cry easily, love easily and dance spontaneously!
Everyday is still full of wonder.

Morning Song

  by Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety.  We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses.  I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's.  The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.  And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.