SONG FOR JESSIE by Sharon Fountain is lovely:


With your grown up garb and your page bobbed hair
You're looking like a woman and it scares me
Think how the years are slipping away
I'll sing you a song to commemorate the day
You began to look like a woman to me
Out of the child it is plain to see
All the things that you might possibly fear
In the future not far from the now and here

You are the battle I almost fought
You are the poem I almost wrote
You are the war I've almost won
Now you're a song I've almost sung

When you're young the world is a fine old place
Protective arms and friendly faces
Kill the dragons shoo the gremlins away
Try to give you a better day
But the time is coming thick and fast
When you will stand alone at last
And the dragons will bang on your own back door
And the gremins'll come back drooling for more.

So don't you come to me with a band upon your finger
Complaining I never warned you of this
Beware of the monsters and gremlins and dragons
Hidden behind a young man's kiss
But for now you're a vision of beauty and faith
In all things wonderful and safe
And I kick myself for thinking this way
Surely tomorrow hides a better day

Because you're young you're strong you're an open page
Not wrestling dragons of a bygone age
And you fight with your mouth and not with your fists
And you'll not be fooled by a young man's kiss