For My Ripe Clarabel

Questions dripped contantly as petals from your ripe rose lips.
Answers were plucked carefully by my own tentative fingers
from the pink puddle of whys and hows at your pale feet.
Reasons for the season's change and how it could rain
on your birthday were not innate but born with you.
I found strength in the scent of your auburn ringlets.
Though more complicated as time passed, I matched the sincerety
that your eyes demanded
and became the well of knowledge that you saw.
Although occassionally compelled to silent patches of contemplation,
words would manisfest because you were always listening.
And now, to the fear in your eyes, as you swell
with new life and ask about those questions,
I must confide that the answers are within you.
You will smell them in the tendrils of your baby's soft hair.