Celia Dreaming Poem by Elizabeth Spires

Bright sphere, I have watched you dreaming,
your face a wordless whorl, an inward-folding flower
whose petals spiral round a dream of milk and hunger,
a fear of falling farther than outstretched arms
can catch you, while I stand beyond the circle
of your dreaming joy and fear, amazed
that you have been here half a year. Half a year!

Yesterday in the garden as you slept on my shoulder,
I watched a bee tunnel into the Rose of Sharon,
summer's late-blooming flower, watched its head,
then furred legs, disappear completely
into the heart of the flower, back beyond
the body's origin, as if it could be unborn.
Sphere, before you were with me, where were you?

Waking, you reached to touch the white face
of the flower, then another, and another, faces
quickly flowing past us, or held and stared into,
as if between two hands, the way a countenance
that lies in rippling water finally comes clear,
making me wonder how all of the million millions
it is you, you who are with me, you and not another.