Look! A flash of orange along the river's edge--

"oriole!" comes to your lips like instinct, then

it's vanished--lost in the foliage,



in all your head holds, getting on with the day.  

But not gone for good. There is that woman    	

walks unseen beside you with her apron

  

pockets full.  Days later, or years, when you least    

seem to need it--reading Frost on the subway,    

singing over a candled cake--she'll reach



into a pocket and hand you this intact    

moment--the river, the orange streak parting 

the willow, and the "oriole!" that leapt



to your lips.  Unnoticed, steadfast, she gathers      

all this jumble, sorts it, hands it back like 

prizes from Crackerjack.  She is your mother,



who first said, "Look! a robin!" and pointed,   

and there was a robin, because her own

mother had said to her, "Look!" and pointed, 



and so on, back to the beginning: the mother, 

the child, and the world.  The damp bottom 

on one arm and pointing with the other: 

							

the peach tree, the small rocks in the shallows,    

the moon and the man in the moon.  So you keep on, 

seeing, forgetting, faithfully followed;   



and you yourself, unwitting, gaining weight,

have thinned to invisibility, become

that follower.  Even now, your daughter



doesn't see you at her elbow as she walks

the beach.  There! a gull dips to the Pacific,

and she points and says to the baby, "Look!"