my little gidding

This morning I read a part
of Eliot's Little Gidding;
this evening I played it out
with a feisty two-year-old.
Fear and fire
and a fight about toothpaste;
then the weightless terror
of falling
from the height of
who I thought I was,
watching some lady with
my face tear sopping
wet pajamas off a
small screaming child.
But now this grace:
what is terror but fear
and fear the beginning
of wisdom.
At the foot of the cross
in a rocking chair,
he slips his hand in mine.
The weight of his
body curled in my lap
holds me here,
a welcome heaviness.
I need this heavy love
that gives a fight
to bring an end
which is always a beginning.