A Blessing

            —for Craig Foster, who loved the poems of children

David says his soul
is like lightning. It lights up the sky,
is gone in a flash.

Taryn, Grade 3, is a tree
wavering and swinging.

She whirls and jumps
in the sky at night.

Davetta's a candle
beginning to melt away.

These children write
a path to the clouds.

They wave to you, Craig,
from a body with a hundred limbs,

sing you onward from a mouth
with a hundred different voices.

May they make for you now
a bridge—a high walk across
to the other side.

Copyright © 2007 Terry Blackhawk All rights reserved
from The Dropped Hand
Marick Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission