Another Poem on My Daughter’s Birthday

There must be soft words

for an evening like this, when the breeze

caresses like gentle fingertips

all over. I don’t know

how not to write darkly and sad.

But it’s five years today since

my little girl was born, cut safely

from the noose.

We meant nothing but hope;

how near death is to that.

Only children, only some children,

get to run free from these snags. She

was born! She lived and she grows

like joy spreading from the syllables

of songs. She reminds me of now

and now and now.

I must learn

to have been so lucky.