MY DAUGHTER, DRESSING

Because her fourth birthday is yet to come
My daughter – no finite word that
Dancing down through time, just as she dances
Down our time past, beyond our time to be,
Struggled with her dress this morning
Insisting as usual that I be there
But furious whenever I begin to help –
So I learn patience with her learning,
The buttons up the back beyond her
As of course I knew they’d be.
      I sat still, not venturing a word,
Holding back the urge to help.
Then quietly she turned to me, saying
‘Help me, daddy.’ Quietly too I did,
Glad to have a moment’s harmony
Not wanting to mock her need now
With offered help previously refused.
      That I thought was it, expecting her
To run off before I reached the last;
But on she went, standing there
Absorbed in some controlling thought—
Which then found words surprising me:
‘When will I ever do these buttons up?’
Perhaps some dream of competence possessed her,
And to reach that goal the sooner
Her reason for otherwise refusing help,
Wondering now when it might be. Never,
As we all know, for even single women
Have zips or friends. I was touched,
Taken with a tenderness that filled
This morning task with delight, making
That word love a little better understood.
But her dream I could not disturb, not yet,
And afraid of how helpless she might feel
Had I uttered what I suppose the truth
I mentioned a time she ponders now and then,
Herself a grown-up in years to come.
      A moment later though, I thought of
Him to whom this routine task
Might in future fall,
And my lightness of heart was darkened
By the fear that he would make it
A domestic duty, something to be done
Undelighted: how she would be hurt
To know her being so poorly tended.
      My anger welled—until,
In that figure of my making
Suddenly I saw myself; and had to ask
Who am I
To berate the failure of a man unknown?