All this stood upon her and was the world
and stood upon her with all its fear and grace
as trees stand, growing straight up, imageless
yet wholly image, like the Ark of God,
and solemn, as if imposed upon a race.

As she endured it all: bore up under
the swift-as-flight, the fleeting, the far-gone,
the inconceivably vast, the still-to-learn,
serenely as a woman carrying water
moves with a full jug. Till in the midst of play,
transfiguring and preparing for the future,
the first white veil descended, gliding softly

over her opened face, almost opaque there,
never to be lifted off again, and somehow
giving to all her questions just one answer:
In you, who were a child once-in you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

This poem made me think of my daughter right now, standing on the edge of womanhood,
and her eyes as big and as round and brown as the day she was born, and equally as
uncertain and frightened. And I wish she was still small enough to hold and rock
and reassure her, but all I can do is recommend things, suggest ideas and angles, instruct her on etiquette,
kiss her, hug her and stand back.