Breathless

Yesterday a woman stepped back into my life who left me breathless. The last time that I saw her she was just a pretty young lady. She stepped off of her shell and into my kitchen.
There are women that are cute, there are women that are pretty, and once in a very great while there are women that seem to stop the rotation of the Earth with their loveliness and grace. Eighteen years ago this condition would have alarmed me and kept me up until the wee hours, waiting for the sound of a car in the driveway.
The last time I saw such a woman was in Eatontown New Jersey, in a smoke-filled, boozy, room. She too left me breathless and caused me to threaten an old friend, a friend who was bound to me with the olive-drab bonds that have no peer.
Many years ago, I was going down the escalator in Filene's Basement. Coming up on the other side was a young lady with similar attributes and not much clothing. That was the day that I realized how much my life had changed. Normally a man's thoughts would flow into an easily predictible pattern. Only one thought raced through my mind, "Boy am I glad that I'm not her Father!". (Insert driveway sounds here).
The woman sat in my kitchenand shared a meal with me. All the while I was marvelling at the change that has come over her. Her mind is as beautiful as it has always been. There is no rancour or lamenting to her conversation. There is still the tongue, a katana that shreds pomposity into the dustbin that it deserves. There is only one person that has aroused her ichor. She spoke of sacrificing that person to Pele but I doubt that that person posseses the primary prerequisite.
I should have seen this coming. The woman comes from a long line of beautiful women, beautiful of form, beautiful of mind, and beautiful of spirit. I have had something to do with a trinity of such women. The only thing that they got from me was the verbal katana that they keep hidden but can unleash at any moment.
Blessed is the Father of daughters but wretched is the Father of beautiful daughters as he sits making tea, waiting for the sound in the driveway. Blessed is the Father of daughters who have learned to think and reason but wretched is the Father of daughters who have learned to apply those gifts to his mentoring. Blessed is the Father of daughters who have learned to speak what they are thinking but wretched is the Father of daughters who have learned to loose their katana on his pomposity.
Is it blasphemy to pity God? For there God was, with the power to change the world forever, and picked the wrong gender. He might have created a world with no war, no stife, and no famine. A world with only a woman to rule it who had snakes for bracelets. I guess that he just took a look at her oufit and said "I'm glad that I won't be her Father.".
How do I feel about my daughters? In the words of my old poetry mentor "Cherished they are and legend they will be.".