As an acorn loosens in its cup, and drops
as a dewdrop shines for half a morning
and is gone, so this shooting star
has fallen, tiny, almost, as the diamond
on his mother’s finger, winkling stealthily
beneath the fretless pillow.
Six years on she is still mesmerised –
his sleeping, his perfection.
There! Hard-kerneled in a thick fold of tissue
bloodless as a knubbled pearl
for secret keeping in the box of precious things
to be rediscovered in the cotton wool of winter.
Now, tonight, she signs the turning of his spring
with a bright new coin.
By Ian Chamberlain
Highly Commended in the Poems Please Me Prize 2014
Ian is a member of Poetry Teignmouth
Illustrated by Judi Bailey
