To me one is my child, the one who will be
seed of my soil, future of my past;
one all my own, voyager of my sea,
the lifeline to eternity I cast.
One looms larger than all the universe
or all its statistician’s mania of noughts,
one is my colour of truth, my strength of purse;
my challenge to confusion, the sense I sought.
Can I persuade myself this is so small?
No rule or slide can circumnavigate
the swarm, the unutterable billions, all
that are or were. Why add the sum of weight
too infinite for meaning like time or stars,
their light years from the earth or tedious miles,
the coral builders lifting up their mountains
the surf jarring on their fantastic piles?
In the face of leaf and swarm and the crowded globe
my one is nothing, too trivial for thought.
In the face of the green the earth wears for a robe,
what is one seed in the whirl of living caught?
How sharp one is, this ant looting my crumbs,
this goldfish in my pool, this pet at heel.
Take all the millions of the census sums,
how can they be like this one child so real?
Source: “Family, My Home” by Amy McGrath
