Your Eyes, My Child

• Esther Wu, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2021

Your eyes, my child, are the colour of the blackest soil
A fertile field that produces harvests
For a thousand autumns of toil
Your eyes, my child, they remind me of inkwells
Expectant with possibility, brimming
With a thousand stories you've yet to tell
Look, my love! When the sun sets your eyes ablaze
They pool with melted copper
A thousand freckles of flame in your gaze
Your eyes, my child, are heirlooms of our ancestry
Be proud, lift them up, for they hold
A thousand generations of legacy
Your eyes, my child, contain the land and the skies
New moon, river pebbles, midnight hush —
Leap with joy, my love, for your lovely black eyes!