One Poem by Jennifer Pratt-Walter

 

To a Daughter at School in Uvalde

 

I nursed you

for one full year.

At your conception,

 

my entire spirit and

every cell of my body

built you, a new being,

 

soul inserted in

the usual mystic

process.

 

How my mind

ignited like fireworks

 

with your creative

ways.  I kept 

forming your

 

childhood with

all the ingredients

of mothering.

 

But now

my arms droop

bereft of you,

little one.

 

I try to somehow

comprehend the vacant

world you left behind,

 

the wind trailing out

letters in your name,

the bright songs you were

meant to sing,

 

I imagine

marvelling at art

you never got to tease

out of a pencil.

 

In the back-

yard I’m planting

wildflowers you loved

for colour and pollinators

 

and a reflective

ball where I only

see my alone-

ness there by the

 

cat grave and foxgloves,

dividing me from

you forever.

 

I want to

believe you

linger close by

 

but purpling clouds

and mourning dove

melodies say you have

 

slipped back into

Mystery

and who knows

 

where desperate

thoughts and prayers

quicken to action

 

or lay restless as

bullets in

this shuddering world?

 

Still, I nursed you.

Wherever you go,

so goes the milk

remembering my

breasts.

my poem about the recent school shootings

Jennifer Pratt - Walter - is a poet, musician and novice photographer, making her way by pondering the small or simple things and helping them sing.