Daughter

My oldest child and I are living a changing, complicated relationship as she enters her middle school years.  I remember sixth grade.  Clearly.  Vividly.  She and I are now in life territory I recall living myself with equally intensity.  Unlike earlier memories which are generally indistinct and Crayola scented, I can recall so much detail of my life from age ten up.  I watch her at this life place and am amazed.  

The definition of daughter offered at dictionary.com sounds so simple.
1. a female child or person in relation to her parents

2. any female descendant

Her Legacy

first we are daughters
drifting in the dreams of
daughters who draw into themselves
the dance of life and develop
filled with fluid and joy and invisible
growth we believe but cannot control. 

we grow
in bodies bulging to bear fruitful fruit – a daughter
born stunning as the first star system glistening and amazing
we cling to each other for life in the moment
when we are still one body having just divided and become two
we learn to sleep and do without sleep
eat and do without food
sob and sigh and laugh and cry
listen for each other’s breath and heart beat to know life continues.

daughters grow
mothers don’t always know
what to say or do and daughters usually think
it doesn’t matter anyway
It takes twenty-five years for daughters to know mothers were right
then we hope to speak so well as to make our daughters
listen more attentively
but they won’t.

mothers grow
watching daughters become beautiful un-babies
wanting to keep them in our laps sometimes
singing songs
smelling of lotion and soap
seeing their brilliance beaming from random expressions
wishing to avoid heartaches, bruises, disappointments.

daughters go
maybe into drifting daughter dreams
and mothers know they must
but we hope
to keep just one moment on a camera so we can remember
being a young mother of a new daughter
who every now and then
became the entire world.