Goddess in her Infancy

You wore a knitted hat with a tassel on it
Red and yellow and Oh So Gold,
as you stumbled up the steps
at Victoria station.

Unhurried, unaware,
in your own small world of cares,
first this step then the next 
reaching up for your fathers arm with a chubby fist
and an innocent cry.

And on you plodded,
next this step and now this here,
your dinky boots scuffed
from all the prior attempts you had made in your tough,
small life.

And you did not know your power.
You did not see the throngs of people towering
behind you,
slowing and crowding like beans in a funnel,
sliding and shuffling trying to get past.
Exasperated commuters at the back of the crowd 
straining to see what was impeding the flow 
tutting and shifting impatiently
on polished leather feet.
You did not see the revellers,
yearning to begin their night,
their energies quickly dampened
by the slow plodding march they were now
dragged into.

You saw only your daddy's arm, and the next step, and the next.

And so the world slowed a while,
and you took your time, no,
you took their time, our time,
and made it your own,
on your ready, steady journey to the next step.
Hard hearts halted, melting slightly,
resigned to the delay,
a whole society behind your tiny foray
into a world less prone to taking things slow.

And then you were at the top,
and the world picked up its gears and backpacks
and spilled around you,
the flow engulfing your tiny frame
as you became, once again,
an invisible, minor, nuisance.

But for those few minutes,
you were Athena. 
You were Moses.
You held all the power of the world in your core,
and you made the whole earth a little more...breathable.

You were, my darling child, for an interlude, an unwitting, unstoppable goddess.
​
Long may you retain that power, little one.