My baby, I remember you still
warm, wonderful - a moist bundle
of limbs unfolding in perfect proportion,
your brown eyes discovering
the world for the first time,
your first journey complete,
your first conquest
my heart.

Accustomed to a humid
equatorial shelter,
you objected loudly
to the harsh new climate,
cold, clinical
like the cut
that severed
your former lifeline.
Our connection, once tangible,
transcended the frail flesh -
became stronger, indestructible.

My little boy, I wish I could remember
your first lisping utterances, articulations
in baby speak of your loving origins,
but they were shared with another
no less caring, yet not me
your mother.

Your name, your inheritance
a double danger, and you
so vulnerable. Bound to you
yet separated by necessity.
Jedi mothers don't dream
except in nightmares.

My boy, I do remember
your first halting steps,
the ground an unreliable ally
tricking and toppling you
making you chuckle. You
unafraid, at home in halls of power
in the glistening corridors of hyperspace.

My son, I remember
the fond family joke,
you the puzzle adept
and yet to us the puzzle, hearing
rhythms unreachable to our ears.
Problems were just equations,
like the temple on Yavin,
rebuilt thanks to you.
I still have the model,
its harmony and balance
quintessentially yours.

What siren songs moved you?
What echoes from a lost past
where strength of will
and honour were still virtues?
So many times I almost lost you,
greed, ambition honing
the cruel blades that would cut you
from me again and again. For you
age was no magical shield and so
you grew up before your time. I
don't remember the moment. I
looked away for an instant
and there you were, a man
to look up to, a young man
I was proud to call my son.

I remember your still form
aglow in the Force, the flush of victory
on your sleeping face. Dantooine,
your initiation as protector of Jedi.

I don't remember
the surgical strike
that severed your tie
to this life, but I felt
your body aflame - a crucible
tested by fire, sanctified by the Force;
your fierce desire to save us all;
your perfect love redeeming me
when all I felt was pain.

My immortal, I remember your still form,
your sweet face peaceful in victory, the stars
aglow showering your final journey
with radiance reserved only for heroes.
And yet the phantom cord endures
stronger still. My link to you. My
everlasting connection to you, my
baby, my son.
My Anakin.

Author Note: Baby Anakin's eyes were brown like his mother's before they turned into the beautiful ice blue with which we are familiar.

Original cover by rhonderoo. HTML formatting copyright 2004 TheForce.Net LLC.