A birthday sonnet

For my oldest

Lilacs in a window, Mary Cassatt

For Elianna Joy, on her 21st birthday

When lilacs open wide their fisted flowers, 
And irises their bearded blooms unfold, 
When cherry blossoms fill the breezy hours 
With drifting petals pink and white as snow; 
When robins with their fire-breasted song 
Awake the mornings dark and damp and chill, 
And all the other songbirds join the throng 
Till they the blossomed air with music fill; 
In this resurrection season, when life, 
New and brilliant, is bursting every place, 
I remember when your life bloomed in mine, 
Your fisted form, your small pink wrinkled face: 
   You've grown beyond all I had hoped for then;
   My answered prayers, my joy, my daughter, friend.