The Light Gatherer

When you were small,
your cupped palms each held
a candles worth under the skin,
enough light to begin,
and as you grew
light gathered in you,
two clear raindrops in your eyes,
warm pearls, shy,
in the lobes of your ears, each
always the light of a smile
after your tears.

Your kissed feet glowed in my own hand,
or I'd enter a room
to see the corner you played in
lit like a stage-set,
the crown of your bowed head spotlit.

When language came,
it glittered like a river, silver
clever with fish,
and you slept
with the whole moon held
in your arms for a night light
where I knelt watching.

Light gatherer.
You fell from a star
into my lap,
the soft lamp at the bedside mirrored in you,
and now you shine like a snow girl,
a buttercup under a chin,
the wide blue yonder
you squeal at and fly in,
like a jewelled cave,
turquoise and diamond and gold,
opening out at the end of a tunnel of years.

Carol Anne Duffy