I want to be your father,
Whoever you are,
Ultimate love. In those clouds, the hovering star.
But I need to find a mother, first.
Should that be difficult? On earth there is a thirst
For making children. Now that my childhood is gone,
Surely I can find her, one with the same desire?
Be patient, my child, my little one.
I loved Rosalinda—I desired another to have her face,
And I was able, as it happened, to build her a poetry of fire,
So you, infinitely aspiring, and beautiful, might be born.
Won’t beauty pass into the flesh of the child?
Does love want children? Or is love simply wild?
Or can attraction be attractive for the future, too?
I wonder if Rosalinda’s mother was beautiful,
More than any—by poetry so beguiled?
But Rosalinda sneered, and was sarcastic.
She said, “Beautiful parents could have an ugly child!”
I stared at her in silence. I wanted you to be born;
Her moon I wished for you—and yet, the idea of you was hated;
She dismissed you. “My face”—she said—looking at me—“will not be domesticated!”
I accepted this; Rosalinda is my love, my sun, and the most sacred thing;
I bowed my head. I know her summer will never have a spring.
I love Rosalinda. But somewhere in my soul, you are.
Her sunshine drowns me. Yet, in the clouds, I glimpse your star.