Daughter Poems

Poems are like diary entries: I can go back and read any of my poems and remember where I was and what I was doing and what inspired the poem. For me, it's a way of relocating myself in my past.

A couple of months ago, I was remembering the trips we made to the Alma house in the late Eighties after our daughter was born. One evening around 1989, Kate and I were sitting at the picnic table on the front lawn. Big white fluffy clouds were moving over the hill and disappearing into the distance. Kate, about three years old, said, "Where are the clouds going ? To supper?" So I wrote a prose poem for her--an answer, really, to her question, eighteen years on.

(Footnote: I've written and published about thirty poems about my daughter, the first one the night she came home from the hospital, the last one just after her twenty-first birthday.)

THE CLOUDS

--for Kate

Years ago, my daughter and I were in love with the
clouds. We sat at the picnic table as dusk came on.
"Dad," she said, "where are the clouds going? To
supper?" Yes, my dear, to supper, to the final
banquet of the light. They'll sleep all night in the
trees above the hills until the day comes out again.

(Copyright 2007, Allan Cooper)