I read about Poetry Thursday afer following a link on Stephanie's blog, and thought it was a very neat idea. It's been a long time since I've written a poem of my own at all, much less one I would feel comfortable sharing with the universe, so instead, here is a poem I found in Garrison Keillor's Good Poems, a poetry anthology that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Each time I read this poem I want to cry, and hold my precious daughter close, and apologize to my own mother for ever growing up. I apologize also to any readers for the blatant sappiness and sadness of this selection, but motherhood and daughterhood is very much on my mind lately. So here you go. Start your day off with a good cry.

Her Door

by Mary Leader

for my daughter Sara Marie

There was a time her door was never closed.
her music box played "Fur Elise" in plinks.
Her crib new-bought -- I drew her sleeping there.

The little drawing sits beside my chair.
These days, she ornaments her hands with rings.
She's seventeen. Her door is one I knock.

There was a time I daily brushed her hair
By window light -- I bathed her, in the sink
In sunny water, in the kitchen, there.

I've bought her several thousand things to wear,
And now this boy buys her silver rings.
He goes inside her room and shuts the door.

Those days, to rock her was a form of prayer.
She'd gaze at me, and blink, and I would sing
Of bees and horses, in the pasture, there.

The drawing sits as still as nap-time air--
Her curled-up hand--that precious line, her cheek...
Next year her door will stand, again, ajar
But she herself will not be living there.