Zita Maria Evensen: Succession

      I did not go to my father's funeral.
  I was too far away   too poor   too selfish
    A million years ago   my father told me
He wished he could capture my baby laughter
        In a glass bubble. Today, I keep
            His poetry there.

I am the honorable Number One daughter
    Of the house of poets and carpenters
Merchants and lawgivers. I count, he said.
      I will rule his house of sunshine,
    Wish wise blessing and build things
            Out of things.

For the love of me, he fashioned my wings
      But gave me no flight plans --
    Just a reminder not to fly too close
      To the sun, tempt steel trees
    Or lose the spectra of rainbows.

I did not go to my father's funeral.
    For the love of him, I retell
The stories of Asgard and the ring
  Of the Nibelungs. I write verses
Between the phase changes of water
  And the transmutations of atoms.

I am the honorable Number One daughter
       Of the house of poets
            And I rule.

2 August 95

from "Rain Shadows" by Zita Maria Evensen,
Ysilakan Press, 1995.