To My Daughter

How do I begin
To tell you all the things I want to say?


That life is short,
Joy is brief and to be savoured.
Love is elusive,
Rarely reciprocated in depth.


Avarice abounds.
Possessions possess.


The butterfly flits from flower to flower
For a brief summer.
How many note it's passing,
Wonder at it's beauty?
How many grasp at it's wings,
Crush & destroy the fragile beauty,
And brush the powder from their callous fingers?


To speak with the experience of passing years
With attitudes obscured by cynisism,
To one unfolding before my eyes
Like time lapse photography.
Dewy with expectation
That the world will unfold like a flower,
A bloom everlasting.
Not tainted.


How to impart the wisdom of age
In an age of no wisdom?
To a microcosm of self,
Though not a clone?
Subtle differences in looks and behaviour.


Have I given you enough along the way?
Enough to make wise judgements,
To value the valuable,
To leave aside the valueless.
Do you even mean the same as me,
When we speak the word
Values?


Hold fast to what you believe in.
But mostly, believe in yourself.
I don't want to see you a hedgehog
Flattened on life's road
By passing traffic.



Val Carlill - Written in the 1980's