Start over.
( For Ewan, my great grandson.)
After you had suckled
I folded you to me
for a walk through your first snows.
Buttresses of winter trees,
grey and stark, silent cathedrals,
arched over the air.
The fields were sheer and brilliant
up to the white hills
and the sky heavy with new falls.
We were figures in a landscape,
barely defined, a dark brush stroke
on the canvas of the day.
I mused on beginnings;
to cast off this misgiving, that shame;
shed sins as a tree drops leaves,
strew them down the avenues of wind,
be rid of them, cleansed;
be babe-innocent once more,
know afresh the first full kiss of nipple,
rinse my mouth with mother’s milk.
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