If not everything is to be lost,
There must be dreamers and their children,

To create new journeys,
And hold a flame up to what is not worth keeping.

The sparks dance, create the light,
Defiant and full of wakefulness, \

Softly, echoing as many voices.
And in the fire shapes shift, envisioned new.

One day when I have a child of my own,
I will wrap her in a blanket of journeys,

Singing to her the song of sea and stars,
Of all things wild and free, where she belongs.

With the strength left by the wild eyes of those gone before,
Flickering still from behind my own eyes,

Fiercely I will challenge the old sorrows that might find her,
And in quiet joy and patient wonder,
I will walk with her into what is to come.

*I wrote this after learning that my very close friend is expecting her first child.*