Clementine

Oh, this little life.

This little life that I have cherished,

much to the amazement of spectators and strangers,

it brims

with more love

and more strength

and more fight

than one little soul should be able to contain.

And I find myself awed by the ferocity of such living.

Because I see the courage in her fearless leaps,

How she scales the giants who populate her world,

hand over hand

climbing

pulling

grabbing

until at last she has perched herself

heaving

upon a shoulder.

Such triump in her stance there.

But then comes the surprise

as she stumbles

then the faith

as she caught

in my arms before

She falls.

She will fall,

She always

but she will not be tempered.

She exists so brilliantly

and she burns so brightly

and it warms this heart I thought

once cold.

They say though she be little, she is fierce

and my God, isn’t she just?

Fierce in all things, in all aspects

of her fragile being,

she hums with exuberance

and thrums with such joy

and she is little

but she is my

amazement.

But she is fading, my sweet girl.

She is growing dimmer by the day,

with every labored breath that she

sips from the air

because it is the ocean for her,

her fire fades,

her flame gutters.

Her little life stifled

a little more.

She seeks me out now,

perfect hands grasping at my own,

and nestles her face

into the crook of my arm

and she struggles to breathe.

So little time left to this little life

and she would have these

moments with me.

Of all the places in her world,

she searches for this one.

She reaches for me

and I hold her.

I will hold her until she lets go,

until she can stay no longer

because there is someplace else she has to be.

I will hold her,

lost in the amazement that

such a little thing

could love so loud.

And I hope I was worthy of this little gift,

of our short days and the years that were

anything but enough,

of the little life

in a little soul

that was

anything

but little.