National Poetry Month: Dana Gioia

I am trying to post poetry several times a week (if not daily) for National Poetry Month.  I came across this beautiful poem recently, and both loved it and related to it.  But when I read it aloud to friends, it made me cry.  As one friend said, "That's because poetry cuts us to the quick."

Indeed.

Majority by Dana Gioia 

Now you’d be three,
I said to myself,
seeing a child born
the same summer as you. 

Now you’d be six,
or seven, or ten.
I watched you grow
in foreign bodies. 

Leaping into a pool, all laughter,
or frowning over a keyboard,
but mostly just standing,
taller each time. 

How splendid your most
mundane action seemed
in these joyful proxies.
I often held back tears. 

Now you are twenty-one.
Finally, it makes sense
that you have moved away
into your own afterlife.