Clay

Our children are so soft, we imprint them

like a heavy sole stepping into mud

not breaking the ground but reordering

its elements, the way it will hitherto

hold water, light, the curious nose of wind

and voice of earth. Even when later rain

smoothes out that patina something of the mark

holds. Even when the sun whips the wetness

to its pools of night and the stiffened ground

wears its shelled-out grooves, when these deepen

in each punching hail and hollowing storm

the pattern may be nothing like the original

print but art in its own way, no trace of boot

apparent in the striving clay.