Misty Angelita
Misty Angelita
Little girls skip in the morning sun,
they sing in the summer heat,
they jump in the fall leaves,
and laugh in the snow.
They certainly do not die.
But my daughter is dead.
Little girls snuggle in their
parents’ laps,
they give butterfly kisses,
they giggle and shriek with joy,
they get tucked into bed with a story.
Of course they do not die.
But my daughter is dead.
And now I know
with resounding sorrow,
how echoing through ancient graveyards
around leaning tombstones
bells have tolled slow, slow,
mournful and low; for thousands
of years, the unrelenting woe;
“my daughter is dead”.
Wailing, moaning ever has been
the deepest mother-sob spiraling,
the wildest grief stunning.
"My daughter is dead."
Her stilled smile, her closed eyes,
the silence after her last breath
was a judge’s gavel descending.
Now I am imprisoned in sorrow;
sentenced to spend perhaps sixty years
here on earth without her.
Empty lap, empty heart, empty bed.
My daughter is dead.
There’s a hollow hole in my family,
an aching hole in my heart.
In a hushed daze my tears drip.
For my daughter is dead.
(C) 1985 Rosemary J. Gwaltney
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