To Olivia, On Your Seventh Birthday
by Morgan S. Grether
May 2011
A seven-year-old stands before me now?
That is amazing, as it seems more like
A month or two since you were born. But now
When I might try to think of what had come
Before, I find that’s just a hazy dream,
As if it were a thousand years ago.
I have to ask myself: Was I alive
Before you came to me, before I met
You, little angel? Was that “life” at all,
That span before, the hintertime, that dark
Epoch, the antediluvian age? Not much,
I guess, as now it seems like I was born
With you (or reborn, I suppose I ought
To say) those seven years ago when you
Arrived to change all my perspectives, dear.
So what now? What stands before us?
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