My Regrets (for Lucy)
Gillian D. Grannum
August 1993
Her big eyes stare up at me
They mirror the wonder I feel when I think of her innocence
She sees me more deeply, more truly than I see myself
For the lenses through which she gazes are clear,
Untainted and unvarnished.
Injustice has not yet left her its legacy.
And yet, even as her smile fills my world with its perfection
I am haunted by the impression that good is seldom eternal.
The history of my experience warns me that
the ashes of a dying society made of the living dead will fall upon her,
first, as gently as a mother’s touch,
then beating down on her with the heaviness living brings,
collecting on her wings and restraining her ascent to the height at which
she can soar above it all.
The smoke from a world which insists on consuming itself with eventually cloud those beautiful
eyes,
forcing them to see as others do.