Plunged into dazzle of darkness I continue half blind
Until sight settles.
We swing from dark to light to dark, swaying
Between the Poles
We clutch, we scream
and you, tiny slip,
Take it all so quietly.
You are so calm
Blinking, adjusting, your blood settling no doubt
To pulse at its own speed now, in its separate world.
It has been dark where you have come from
Dark and quiet like the churchyard on the hill
Drowsing in noontide, dark surrounded by light.
7.
Too much is put on children by our wishes:
To carry the banner, to forge and protect the nation.
To make Utopia, which we could not do .
We really should not wish you anything
Except good luck and health and the wit to use them.
But - old ritualist - I want my wishes,
I wish you may
Avoid being mired by the past or the claim of sects;
Not lose the sense of history, but loose
The clutch of the bitter ghosts unsettled people
Feed with acrid blood, as some keep dogs
Hungry on the highway.
It is for such as you who everywhere
Turn to their mother's milk, try out the air,
Move away from the glare, that if we could
We would change nations into geography.
I hope you will love whatever place you live in
Because you love it, not because commanded
By joyless people gritting their teeth for power;
Welcomed everywhere and safe enough
To welcome others and like them for their strangeness.
This is for later,
for now
Welcome, strange darling, into this new place
Where you have lighted, soft and quiet as thistledown
To thrive wherever you land, Madog, my girl from Wales.
