Song for a Lost Child

I see her everywhere

in every child's place.
I  am her father

drawing out what I cannot erase:

the fragile beauty of her face,

her body full of grace

and now the hollow of the empty space.

Perhaps before I awake,

while I am unaware,

unharnessed from all that I can take,

myself stripped completely bare,

I hear my child's laughter

soft in the arms of her mother

and I have no fear.

Ben Gage