I will give you all the power I have in this world

Stacy Ashenden

Gladioli by Piet Mondrian, c.1906. Minneapolis Institute of Art

I

first, i will give you
Red
holding you at our window,
pointing into the bare trees
behind our house.
of all the birds,
cardinals are among the few
that endure
the depths of winter,
when you will be born.
i will give you
Brown
Branch
&
Tree
i will give you
Snow
&
White
i will give you Names
for all things.
when you tire of seeing through glass,
or simply tire
and cannot sleep,
i will give you
Green
for the hat and mittens
to keep your head and fingers warm,
each Word a lesson and a gift.
all this i will say to you
as i bundle us both for a walk.
then, i will give you
Frozen
&
Lake
as your cries begin to quiet,
and we make our way home,
we will spy
behind tree trunks and underbrush,
our friend tiptoeing on the ice,
keeping pace as we walk.
i will give you
Orange
&
Fox
and a love
equal to the love of Words
for Silence

II

your peers will give you
new meanings
for those very same Words
new arrangements, shorthands, and variants.
they will gift you new Words, too,
to hide the meaning from those
familiar with the old Words,
in other words,
from the old.
they will give you
Hearts
all shades of the rainbow
and reasons to use each,
they will give you the encoding of
Emojis
if those are still in use.
perhaps there will be a new symbolic language.
if we have built
a relationship of trust,
i hope,
you will let me in.
not fully,
just a door ajar
into the language of your life,
and then describe to me
the World you will inherit

Stacy Ashenden is a librarian by training. Her prior works have appeared mostly in academic journals. She enjoys feeding her sourdough habit and reading books much too dark for her own good.