Face framed with a few
lonely wisps of gray,
the dark haired lady
suggested gently, over coffee,
to the young mother,
bone weary, with a babe
who had cried through the night,
but now slept, as the mother
could not,
that there was a deep voice
within her little one,
as the man he would become,
with a strength
he could not have
without her weary devotion,
provided as the gift of love,
time, and time again,
through the lonely night.
— From the September 16, 2013 issue of National Review.