Song

At her Junior High School graduation,

she sings alone

in front of the lot of us—

 

her voice soprano, surprising,

almost a woman's. It is

the Our Father in French,

 

the new language

making her strange, out there,

fully fledged and

 

ready for anything. Sitting

together—her separated

mother and father—we can

 

hear the racket of traffic

shaking the main streets

of Jersey City as she sings

 

Deliver us from evil,

and I wonder can she see me

in the dark here, years

 

from belief, on the edge

of tears. It doesn't matter. She

doesn't miss a beat, keeps

 

in time, in tune, while into

our common silence I whisper,

Sing, love, sing your heart out!

 

Eamon Grennan, Relations: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 1998)