Here's my last post for Abigail's birthday. This is her new poem, just written the other day for her second birthday. It's very different from the usual sort of thing I've written for birthdays and anniversaries, but expresses the burdens of the hour for me. Time is an important underlying theme of the poem, and I was hearing a clock ticking in my head while writing it, which accounts both for some of the wording and the rhythm of the poem. Though it may not be obvious at first, the basic idea of the poem was inspired by recent readings of the Puritan John Owen (The Mortification of Sin) and the Poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Idylls of the King). I don't usually explain this much with my poems, but I feel compelled to point out that the creatures mentioned herein are symbolic of sins or sinful tendencies; and their size is indicative of the fact that such sins can seem small and harmless (even cute) in our little ones, but they grow into quite ugly son of a guns.
Little Dragon Eyes
A Poem for Abigail on Her Second Birthday
Given By Her Father
16 August 2010
Tick-tock, one clock, there upon the wall;
You’re there—beware: some desire your fall.
Dark spies, red eyes, little dragons wait;
Bick’ring, Snick’ring, planning out your fate.
What now? But how? You are only two!
Would they? Could they? They are after you!
Creping, peeping, “Get them while they’re young!”
Find you, bind you: heart, and eyes, and tongue.
Heart’s door: watch for little dragon eyes;
Find them, bind them, lest they spread their lies;
Each day: fight, pray; mortify your sin;
They knock, you lock: never let them in.
Tick-tock, one clock, time is not your friend,
If they do stay, growing without end;
But they’ll grow pale, sicken, pass away,
If you vow to hasten their decay.
Here now, I vow, on your birthday morn,
That I will die for my youngest born;
And live to give light to pierce the guise:
Expose all those little dragon eyes.
