The First of Eleven

If only there were some way to explain
Away the horror, anguish, and pain
In my daughter’s eyes when she stares at me.
A strangeness, a wildness, she must see,
And no wonder, for I am not of this world at all,
But pulled her by fear and true love’s call,
And I come from a place this side of heaven,
The First World of the Glittering Eleven,
The First of Eleven Worlds.

The odd flashes of visions I cannot control,
Though so seldom do they rise from my exiled soul
That I can pretend almost that I am human.
But I am come from this side of heaven,
And my daughter knows, for she sees them too,
The visions of crushed diamonds like the bright dew,
The visions of mountains and meadows like heaven,
The First World of the Glittering Eleven,
The First of Eleven Worlds.

I did not know, when I first bore our child,
The daughter of my love, passionate and wild,
That she would be human, and yet something more,
Not entirely of this, the Second World’s, shore,
That she would see the visions, and wandering roam,
Looking for a way to go back to her home,
For such she does not call this side of heaven,
But the First World of the Shining Eleven,
The First of Eleven Worlds.

I did not know, but I must still cause her pain,
For if I went home, then I would not come back again,
And she would not survive long, touched with this,
The more ordinary happiness, content, and bliss
Of the Second World where I live save for visions.
But I fear someday she will make her own decisions,
And reach for the vision of this side of heaven,
The First World of the Glittering Eleven,
The First of Eleven Worlds.