For my daughter Dana

Southern Wildflower

What I can see, so beautiful
the medley that my eyes adorn,
for you have taken in
the likeness of my beating heart,
and the breath I breathe,
to the wickering sounds
that are the same in me.

Southern Wildflower
I hear your fears you lock away,
crying in the rain.
All the things that I could say
could not save you from another day.

Here is not the darkness that must prevail,
when the sun is warm with a cloudless sky,
and you have bloomed to reach so high.

I have shadowed who I am to you
and watched you grow at my side
as if to ferry all my days
and never see them pass away,

above the cracks and corners.
Feel the bleeding sunlight
and the warmth within
on the roads I’ve walked with you again.

You have stepped away I see
and taken every bit of me,
to hold you back or set you free,
I struggled through this travesty

Here is the shadow that blossom’s
standing in the sunlight alone
to taste the Delta breeze,
in the virtue that time has given,
for every eye to see.

With each step you grow
to reach the sun
spilling color into every face you pass,
every song you sing, every tear you cry
from emotions sting.

Grow strong my weary wildflower
and let fear bramble on the vine
with the only darkness close to you
the shadow of your own virtue.