Cuckoo Child: a lyric poem for my daughter

My cuckoo child
lay you down in another nest
my darling daughter
see you dance
while I rest and o
how I wish
everything were perfect stars
and moonlight gentle
afternoons of laughter
in a house of rain and
sunshine

You're almost a woman
but you're always my darling
who lay with her head
in the palm of my hand
I wrote the lullaby
your mother sang to you
I've loved you since
before your first
drew breath and o
how I wish
everything were perfect stars
and moonlight gentle
afternoons of laughter
in a house of rain and
sunshine, my cuckoo child.

-- 15.vii.07

Commentary:

The "cuckoo" of the poem does not refer to insanity, but to the situation of the genus of bird called "cuckoo": they lay their eggs in other birds' nests. At the time I wrote this poem, I was fairly well finished with the physical process of separating from my wife, and at the time I thought perhaps that Willow would soon have a stepmother. This did not happen, but Willow was physically moved from the farmette on which we had been living to a rather different life shuttling between her mother's rancher in a lovely older suburban neighborhood with mature trees and my apartment home in the "country" (more apparent than actual: two suburban cul-de-sacs are within sight of my apartment).

The 15th of July, 2007, is notable in that it was the day I was bitten by a skunk when I tried to free him from a trap on my landlord's property. This resulted in a rabies series and an ongoing struggle with my insurance provider, which insists that 1) rabies series are not covered, or 2) the series falls within my deductible, or 3) the treatment was improper for the condition treated, or 4) some combination of the above as seems best to the provider at the moment.

On the 15.vii.07 I also wrote "Taillights", for those who are concerned to keep records of such things. Perhaps it was suggested by the skunk?