For Theo, on her seventh birthday
Sometime, but not too long from now, it will come to you
That nothing you hear in the trees is trying to speak:
You have listened all this time without questioning
Even for a second where it comes from, but the moment
Is not far off when you will hear that voice you believe in break
Like a pubescent boy’s, and you will never again even think
In the language you thought you heard
Saying, over and over, something you understood:
These are the woods, those are the clouds, this is the cold echo
Of wind that moves between. Today I am here, I tell you, and you,
God help you, are my daughter: but these are words, and only
Keep you from knowing the prickling
Voice you will hear soon enough and believe is breaking,
Now, in its time, out of that other cold
Certainty, out of that needled questioning of your body.
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