This week’s poem, Alana Saleeby’s “Uncle,” offers a beautiful lesson and liturgy for raising a child. I love this poem’s gentle wisdom, its vibrant natural imagery, and its tone – which feels like part guidance, part prayer and part song.
Saleeby is a non-binary artist born and living in southern Maine. They spend most of their time with children, animals and plants, leaning into the magic of play and humbling themselves in nature.
Uncle
By Alana Saleeby
Do for the child
introduce fumbling hands
to the tools
offer, only, what is of use
Be for the child
a mirror reflecting the infinite questioning
witness where space and time resurrect a body
an experience for one
an offer, only, to be of use
Carry for the child
what’s better put down
a lightness of grown flowers come autumn
their stalks as thick as my wrists never snap
but bend, lay their flowers face down
their seeds kiss the earth
offering only what is useful
Plant for the child
a freeness only seen
when the petals snag a current of wind
and fly and fly and fly
gold slips of sun vanishing
Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Uncle,” copyright © 2020 by Alana Saleeby, appears by permission of the author.
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