For my accidental godchild

When I first saw you
you lay
swaddled in wishes
within a world, dream-laden,
tightly packed with prayers.
Cast up like driftwood on your mother's lap
washed by her tears
her melting edge of grief fell slowly at your baptism.

Beached precariously on the world's shore
by arms and legs we held you
as if our hands could bind you to the earth,
and in your naming we forbade some random wave to sweep you back
and claim you never were.
And all we dared to ask was this:
that you should live
tomorrow and tomorrow.



Sept 88
For a child for whom I stood in as godmother at short notice. The baptism took place in the Special Care Baby Unit the day after her birth, just before she underwent a serious operation. I am glad to say she survived and is now grown up.