Lines On The Arrival Of A Daughter Poem by Kevin Cadwallender

Porlocked by her arrival
In a glossary of the trivial,
She scatters innocence,
Brooks no pretension.

Unzips the meaning of existence
With carefully unconsidered phrases,
The dark is only a family of shadows,
That gather together to eat daylight.

How do you know this? I ask
Eager for answers that have stumped
The philosophers, poets and explorers
Of once unchartered territories.

Or perhaps it is obvious to her,
For a child can perceive the distance
As near here, only far away.

And I am dulled by contemplation
By an over indulgence of pondering,
She lifts the great weight of history
With one finger, flicks it like a balloon.

Time is something to do with forever
But is nothing to do with clocks …