Today my niece is 13. That shocks and amazes me. Isn’t she still two and a half? Isn’t she 30? I’ve written a poem for her birthday each of the last three years, each year that I’ve pushed myself to explore a form for the month of April. So now she has a tanka, a Rhyme Royale and a nove otto … and now she’ll have a Zeno. If I somehow manage to keep this up, one day I’ll be able to make her a book made entirely of my love poems to her!
God child. A spring bloom in my life.
Watching you grow,
my heart
lifts.
Your energy —
hot, sharp,
swift.
Our connection,
purest
gift.
if you want kin, you must plant kin ... 
Oh what a lovely idea, and a beautiful poem.
A spring bloom in my life.
Love that image.
My youngest daughter is a spring bloom in my life. I was 43 when she was born.
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I only wish I’d been on this poetry kick for more than the last few years. But I have time: right now, it’s a little hokey to have your aunt writing poems about you, but eventually it’ll become cute … and one day it might even be cool!
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And one it might be a book 🙂
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That would be a sweet book to make. I’m looking forward to putting that together one day!
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Love inspires. I like this poem, and the images it gives me of my 13 year old girl, who is now 26. But I remember that age. They are hot, sharp, and swift. I love the idea of collecting a book of poems for her, in all the styles you try out in these years.
Oddly, your title reminded me of Mick Jagger and Norah Jones singing “Love Hurts”, an old man and a young woman, such a performance.
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I’m glad I gave you a memory of you daughter with my thoughts about my niece. Jagger & Jones? I can’t really imagine it!
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not mick jagger, sorry, keith richards, such a different sort of energy, creepier and yet closer to what I understand.
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Oh my. I can imagine this pairing even less! And you know I wish you’d explain the rest of your comment!
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ok, here’s my explanation. I have patience with old men, when they are a certain kind of humble. I see the greatness of what they were and their nostalgia for it. They feel my recognition of the what-was, and my openness to the what-still-is in a man who is self aware. I think Keith Richards is self aware in some foggy post heroin sort of way. He is the great survivor of self abuse. He is also a little creepy. If you watch “Shine A Light”, Jagger did not flirt with the women in the audience, but Richards did. Jagger’s way of interacting with co-performers is both less stage-center and less pathetic than what Richards does. In this video, he drags Norah close to him, where she does harmony and allows him to run the show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAbOpiAKi8&feature=related
She is the perfect duet. You can watch her with Willie Nelson, too. She explains their chemistry here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnCsk2ZjGFE&ob=av2n. The way he sings “takes me back to my childhood,” she says.
She and Willie Nelson each work with their voices in the most careful ways in “Baby it’s cold outside.” So nice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlGcxM_a_OE.
… which was a song my father loved, and so do I, as sung by Ella Fitzgerald http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uUmRbl_0lg. I thought she had sung it with Louis Armstrong, but I can’t find it on youtube.
I love Willie Nelson’s timing in this song.
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Thanks for coming back and giving me more story, Molly! I totally get what you’re saying. I, too, find Richards amazing for having survived but (uber) creepy. Thanks for all the music you shared, too! I hadn’t seen/heard any of these before.
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