A Daughter to her Mother

I don’t quite understand: I’ve played with dolls,
And mothered them, like other little girls,
And almost loved their smiling painted lips,
Unanswering eyes, and wealth of ordered curls.
Perhaps, if those curved lips had laughed aloud,
The little fingers tightened in my hand,
The little feet walked – and away from me –
Then I might understand.
And you don’t understand. You’ve played with dreams –
Soft, wistful things, from your true world apart –
And never felt the crystal starlight swords
Pierce, venom-tipped with longing, through your heart.
You’ve blown a kiss to the white road outside
And turned back to your knitting and the fire,
Smiling to think of it – the road which runs
To the wild purple hills of my desire.
And all poor shadows of the dreams I love
Fall from you at a careless child’s caress –
A child whose eyes look past you. Did we know,
We two, each other’s bitter loneliness?
Soft firelight, glowing in your little room,
Shines on your face, that pleads with me to stay –
And outside, in the starlight-scattered gloom,
My lost road wanders half the world away.