light gatherer

• what is the poem about?

  speaker describes magical experience of having a baby - child is presented as a blessing and a source of light who brings incredible joy into the speakers life
• 'two clear raindrops in your eyes / warm pearls'


  • light = inner purity
  • 'clear raindrops' - positive tears of a baby
  • pearls symbolise purity and innocence , child valuable to speaker
• internal rhyme - 'skin' and 'begin'


  daughters light shines from within
• 'when language came , it glittered like a river , silver , clever with fish'

  • river similie conveys speed and fluid way in which children learn language
  • 'silver' = precious , valuable
  • each new word is like spotting fish in a river - sense of wonder when children first learn to speak
• 'like a jewelled cave , turquoise and diamond and gold, opening out at the end of a tunnel for many years'


  • 'jewels' represent knowledge children will learn , 'tunnel' suggests parents role in guiding child through life , 'end of a tunnel' - light , vitality of life
• the child 'fell from a star'


  angelic quality , semantics of light , supernatural - love for child transcends above human realm of understanding , so huge it has to be supernatural of some kind
• 'tunnel at the end of the cave'


  reference to Plato's cave
• enjambment


  free-flowing expression of wonder , love can't contained