For Caroline

The sun’s elbows nudged
the moon’s fullface and songbirds
from the morning of your birth,
and wrapped the earth
with throated swells approving–
the dancing orangebeams
streaming bright promises
on your strawberry hair.
In this moment, this place
cements your pacing,
but bids you soar,
the tracings to be scored
flowing from your hopes.
And running fast, they
trot and nod the simple
truth of you, and
how much less the world
would be without you.