One Day
One day I will grow up.
I will wear flowers in my hair—
Sweet smelling magnolias, roses the color of the setting sun; irises, so deep a purple that they could be black; a sprinkling of robins’ egg blue star-flowers.
One day I will grow up, wear flowers in my hair,
Take off my shoes, those strips of cow hide that barricade the soles of my feet,
that stop the green grass from tickling the smooth skin of my arches,
Stop my toes from digging into summer-warm mud.
One day I will grow up, pile white and orange and purple and blue flowers in my hair,
I will walk tall on bare feet,
the tickling grasses my best friends,
the warm mud a toe-blanket.
One day I will grow up,
tall, walk with long steps, the perfume of magnolias a cloud around my head.
I will rule the world.
And the animals, all the living creatures,
the lions, the bears, the pelicans,
the do-do birds, the bats, the salmon, the butterflies,
the earthworms who soften the mud that blankets my feet,
all the living creatures and their friends will walk with me and sing me to sleep.
One day I will grow up
and I will wear flowers in my hair.
I will be the creator of the world as it should be.
I will declare that world good,
and on the Seventh day I will rest with all the living creatures,
who will sleep safely with me
in a cloud of magnolia perfume
under a blanket of blue stars.