When the wind's deluding grace

makes the trees and waters wild,

or when the sun pursues its race

over city, sea and field, -

sun, shine gently in the place

where you see my gentle child;

wind grow still before his face:

all the elements, be mild.

Now that I, with voice nor hand,

cannot touch him with my care,

I deputise it to the wind:

let the northward stream of air

flowing over plain and mountain

weave around his chafing fear

unseen its passive cool affection,

while I burn in silence here.

Let the impulses that start,

born to die without their end,

the halted gestures of my heart, -

words, caresses, movements, - blend

and be directed to his mind.

The bird cries outside the nest,

darkness throbs. What I would find

give to my son: be his rest.

Always he would inhabit an alien landscape,

someone else's setting; he walked with surly

devotion the moist paths of a bush valley

whose trees had spoken to one he could not keep

as friend; he would learn local names, claim kinship

by an act of will; then let his mind haunt

and cling as hands grasped branches, stones,

eyes learnt by heart another sky's shape.

In late childhood he had lived a year

emotionally wedded to an elm, whose leaves

crumbling in all his pockets evoked rough

and bitter the warm bark; then a small creek

had filled one summer with the breathing air

of willows and brown water; by such loving

he cast off abounding, more exacting dreams,

and baffled others less than he would think.

Later, his enlarging world demanded

mountains, passionate rivers, a harsh bay,

as wider symbols; where no loved face

spread to his hand, he would stroke the wind-grained wood,

learn and cherish a stone's contours, and,

where once the grace of a girl's voice had spoken,

set blind feet on the hare's path to walk

and closet with a rock his loving blood.

The climax never came; he might have cooled

his flesh utterly in the sudden river,

or found long satisfaction in a haven

made solitary by hills; but gradually

the challenging lust ebbed back unfulfilled.