"Tiny"

“Tiny”

This is the word that comes to his mind

He blots at his weary eyes

Almost a year,

He feels a sense of triumph,

A sense of loss,

Of belonging to a cause

To keep this tiny thing from harm

Her eyes are blue

So blue you wouldn’t believe that hue

And he finds that the only thing he can do

Is cry

Asking a million times why

Her palms close around his pinkie finger

Tragic how his thoughts just linger,

On everything she’ll never do

Marriage, college, prom too,

And wonders for the first time in his life

What it is that causes strife

In happy normal families

Where was he when they taught about

How to handle tragedies?

His eyes well with tears,

With the weight of all his newfound fears

And he wonders if,

Through the years

She’ll ever find herself a home

Apart from his and his wife’s own

A first time father full of hope

Choking on his own length of rope

Her eyes so blue they watch him

And not a thing can stop them.

She doesn’t know,

She will not grow,

Nor is aware

That it’s rude to stare

So on and on she looks

The face of her father like a picture in a book

And her mother wonders about tomorrow

Will it pass with little sorrow?

This little girl they’re holding

How long will it be before the drowning

Stops

She thinks at last of heaven

Truthfully, she didn’t believe, even then

But she found time to examine that again,

Looking at a face

In need of some spiritual grace

Will there be a place

For her to be

After the tragic,

After she’s free

From all the pain and disease

Gearing up in her

Tiny

Body