When you were small and scarce could speak,
You swore a thorn had pierced your eye,
While in a sleeping bag that week
We’d brought from Cyprus you did lie.
How bravely you endured the pain
Until the thorn had been removed;
How wise you seemed, when it was plain
Your diagnosis had been proved!
And then, in France, some years ago
You were by hornets cruelly chased:
In shock I watched as high and low
You from those hellish harpies raced.
Yet once again, though stung and dazed,
By such courageous dignity
Your shattered father you amazed
And proved your own integrity.
Jerusalem
23 April 2007