Holding in clear hands
The world’s true light
She lifts its perfect flame
Against the night.
About its pulse of fire
Earth and seas run,
Season and moon and star,
The unruly sun.
Upon the hill a scuffed
Thinness of snow,
First of green thorn, a stream
Stopped in its flow.
She keeps within her hand
The careful day
Now the slow wound of night
Has bled away:
Vivid upon her tongue
Unspoken prayers
That she may not outlive
The life she bears.
Charles Causley, “Mother and Child”
Locus Communis 