For Judy

I see you striding up some western hill;

Shrugged in a warming garment for the climb,

Your hair all windy in the freshening chill

Your light step eager,     in the breeze of time.

I watch you in your gentle,     forward gait,

Tilting your head to scan the open sky;

A wordless song in you that will not wait

Tracing the echoes of your passing by.

I find you there – and in a windowed tree

Known long ago;   the cycle of its bloom,

The certain way in which its buds burst free

(And wonder blossomed in a childhood room).

I see you then – just past that springtime sill,

Stretching your smaller self to topmost bough –

-- Today I see that proud ascending,   still,

The brightest April,    living in you now.

                                                E.S.W.

                                                April 17, 1978