Burn Bright This Life, 2018

for my nieces and nephews
– after Maj Ragain’s “Little Tyger Burning Bright/to a New Grandson/Nov. 3, 1995”

Find yourself far from home,
your roots a trail of memory
embracing the globe.

May you build bridges
in the wilderness
with your heart.

Wait to speak until you have
something meaningful to say.

May your quiver be filled
with arrows of compassion.

May you fall into your own
grace with laughter and a grand
story to tell.

May you reach the stars, fill
your heart with light, and live
a life of curiosity.

May the sweat of hard work
crown your brow. May you love
with a dog’s loyalty.

Listen to the dinosaurs.
They have stories to tell.

May you break what needs
broken, disorder the orderliness.

May a song always sing
in your heart. Dance to your
own magic music.

Smile on each new day, laugh
with the joy of your ancestors.

May you throw seeds
at the world’s problems
and watch gardens grow.

Always, always be as yet
unfinished and growing
in life’s womb.

 

 

Lacie Semenovich is the author of a chapbook, Legacies (Finishing Line Press, 2012).  Her poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Ghazal Page, Leveler, Muddy River Poetry Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Fewer than 500, B O D Y, Nixes Mate Review, Misfit Magazine, White Wall Review, and other journals.