Clearing

I’m watching her: this part of me who thinks
and writes (occasionally at once). She’s
onto something new, she thinks. And maybe
she is, I don’t know. What I like best
is the joy I feel her feeling as she races
through her trance. I don’t want to startle her
in this sudden clearing, don’t want
to make my presence known, for fear
she’ll lose her train of thought, for fear
she’ll notice me and blush bright red, like
that time her brother Jim walked in on her
pounding out the piano solo from Cat Stevens’s
“I Think I See the Light” onto her bedroom desk.
Don’t mind me, little one. Keep going. Make
mistakes, change fast and slow, follow
your thought the way I follow you. We’ll both,
we’ll all, be here to help you home again,
when time comes round for that.