You know you're married when

 "Would It Be So Wrong"
by Krista Lukas

to suggest that he move
next door? I don't want him
gone altogether, neither can I stand
him underfoot. It might be ideal
to holler over the fence,
invite him to dinner.
We'd sit together on the patio, eat
asparagus from his garden,
grilled shrimp under the setting sun,
then kiss the grease from our lips,
maybe more. After,
he'd go home
and watch basketball at full volume,
while I soak in the tub listening to Coltrane.
Then, wearing pajamas, hair uncombed,
I'd curl up in my own living
room with Robert Frost or People
and the cat, the quiet,
the light of a single lamp.

Thinking of summer

Some people call them "ditch lilies," but to me they signify welcome.  The front bank of my parents' home is covered with a thick sea of common orange day lilies in the summertime. And I've started transplanting some of them into our back yard, bringing some old familiar friends to the new house...

"The Ubiquitous Day Lily of July"
by David Budbill

There is an orange day lily that blooms in July and is
everywhere around these parts right now. Common.
Ordinary. It grows in everybody's dooryard—abandoned
or lived in—along the side of the road, in front of stone walls,
at gas stations and garages, at the entrance to driveways,
anywhere it takes a mind to sprout. You always see them
in clusters, bunches, never by themselves. They propagate
by rhizomes, which is why they are so resilient, and why
you see them in bunches.

There is an orange day lily that blooms in July and is
ubiquitous right now. The roadside mowers mow a lot
of them, but they don't get them all.

These are not the rare and delicate lemon yellow day lilies
or the other kinds people have around their places. This one
is coarse and ordinary, almost harsh in its weathered beauty,
like an older woman with a tough, worldly-wise and wrinkled
face. There is nothing nubile, smooth or perky about this flower.
It's not fresh. It's been around awhile and everybody knows it.

As I said, it's coarse and ordinary and it's beautiful because
it's ordinary. A plant gone wild and therefore become
rugged, indestructible, indomitable, in short: tough, resilient,
like anyone or thing has to be in order to survive.

Chilly morning today

Every once in a while I come across a poem and think, "Mom would like this." (For example, the one I posted here.) She loves to play the just-a-dumb-PE-teacher card. But--and I know she would totally mind that I'm pulling back the curtain on her brain here--she double majored in Physical Education and English in college, then went on to complete her Masters in Education, and a significant amount of coursework beyond her Masters. When asked why she did not go for a PhD, she replied that it would rendered her fit for only administration or university work. And that wasn't her cup of tea.

"Waking on the Farm"
by Robert Bly

I can remember the early mornings—how the stubble,
A little proud with frost, snapped as we walked.

How the John Deere tractor hood pulled heat
Away from our hands when we filled it with gas.

And the way the sun brought light right out of the ground.
It turned on a whole hill of stubble as easily as a single stone.

Breathing seemed frail and daring in the morning.
To pull in air was like reading a whole novel.

The angleworms, turned up by the plow, looked
Uneasy like shy people trying to avoid praise.

For a while we had goats. They were like turkeys
Only more reckless. One butted a red Chevrolet.

When we washed up at noon, we were more ordinary.
But the water kept something in it of the early morning.

Take the night off

My house is zipped up tight right now while the weather is nice enough to throw open every window. I grimace when another mom suggests a trip to the playground. My allergies are not as bad as they used to be but still. I want to be outside spreading mulch and trimming the shrubs and painting. So I do those things, and then sneeze and scratch out the ransom afterward. Spring would be my favorite season were it not for all the pollen. Instead I have a love-hate thing going with the air. This time of year I am missing part of our old neighborhood: the low place in the road on the walk to meadow. The creek crosses under and the spring peepers congregate at all hours to announce their urges to the universe. Nature's string section tuning up for another year.
 
- - - - - - - - - -

"The Frogs After Dark" by Robert Bly

I am so much in love with mournful music
That I don't bother to look for violinists.
The aging peepers satisfy me for hours.

The ant moves on his tiny Sephardic feet.
The flute is always glad to repeat the same note.
The ocean rejoices in its dusky mansion.

Bears are often piled up close to each other.
In caves of bears, it's just one hump
After another, and there is no one to sort it out.

You and I have spent so many hours working.
We have paid dearly for the life we have.
It's all right if we do nothing tonight.

We've heard the fiddlers tuning their old fiddles,
And the singer urging the low notes to come.
We've heard her trying to keep the dawn from breaking.

There is some slowness in life that is right for us.
But we love to remember the way the soul leaps
Over and over into the lonely heavens.

An orchard for a dome

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.
(from poem number 57 by Emily Dickinson)

We hung a suet feeder just outside the kitchen window at the new house. Each morning Maureen and I watch the songbirds--we all eat our breakfast together. The variety of species that visits each morning is impressive: eastern bluebirds, northern cardinals, white-breasted nuthatches, tufted titmice, black-capped chickadees, red-bellied woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, blue jays, red-winged blackbirds, American robins, boat-tailed grackles, northern juncos, purple finches, and white-crowned sparrows.

As each takes its turn and flies away, Mo says, "Back!" She hauls my Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds around and pages through the illustrations. The daily bird watching is a quiet sort of routine we share. When I write "quiet" I mean simple. I find myself looking for more ways to cultivate simple, peaceful routines for Mo, for all of us.

About 50 years ago Elise Boulding wrote, "It is possible to drown children and adults in a constant flow of stimuli, forcing them to spend so much energy responding to the outside world that inward life and the creative imagination which flowers from it becomes stunted or atrophied." More apt today than when she wrote it.

I worry that there is too much noise in our lives. And as my mommy-friends encourage me to sign Mo up for this or that, to buy the latest learning gadget, I resist. We go to storytime at the library and meet our friends to play. We color and play with puzzles and read books. We listen to music and dance and sing. We pretend to cook, and we actually cook. We do laundry and put away dishes together. I'm not some kind of luddite saint--we watch tv, too, but try to keep limits on it. All the while I see people racing around us. I try to do it the way my parents and Robb's parents did it. Their model works just fine.

Ten years

 "Shifting the Sun"
by Diana Der-Hovanessian

When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses. May you inherit
his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.

Happy New Year!

I still have a handwritten list of resolutions for 2012 in my day planner, intending to type it up, intending to tackle the tasks, achieve the goals, conquer the world. Instead as I turned a page to begin a new week I moved the list, tucked it in between pages a few weeks ahead. When I encountered it again I moved it forward again usually without a glance at the good intentions. Until Thanksgiving. Then I gave up and fast-tracked it to the end of the book. One of the gems it contains, "If you don't have enough time to do what you want to do, turn off the tv." Other notes about spring cleaning my life, abandoning the time-burglars, making more time for art...perhaps I'll get around to it this year. Meanwhile I might take some of Louise Erdrich's advice. If I follow her instructions on housekeeping--and I'm already a deplorable housekeeper--Robb should be very afraid.

"Advice to Myself"
by Louise Erdrich

 Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic—decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are a little displaced this Thanksgiving Day because Mom is out of town, and she hosted Thanksgiving dinner at her house every year for the past four decades. Thankfully we shared a wonderful dinner with Robb's side of the family last night. As the little cousins get bigger, the family gatherings keep getting rowdier in the best possible way. This morning, weather permitting, we will be taking Maureen to the National Zoo for the very first time. I am excited to see what she makes of all the animals from her books walking around in real life. In the meantime, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving! And to kick off the holiday season, a poem--a prayer--to set the bar high for the coming year, to help us remember to cherish one another, to give the present of being present. Glad tidings!

 "A Prayer among Friends"
by John Daniel

Among other wonders of our lives, we are alive
with one another, we walk here
in the light of this unlikely world
that isn't ours for long.
May we spend generously
the time we are given.
May we enact our responsibilities
as thoroughly as we enjoy
our pleasures. May we see with clarity,
may we seek a vision
that serves all beings, may we honor
the mystery surpassing our sight,
and may we hold in our hands
the gift of good work
and bear it forth whole, as we
were borne forth by a power we praise
to this one Earth, this homeland of all we love.

Nose to the grindstone

"The Real Work"
by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Some days

"I'd Rather be the Father"
by Faith Shearin

Right from the start, it's easier to be the father: no morning
nausea, no stretch marks. You can wait outside the

delivery room and keep your clothes on. Notice how
closely the word mother resembles smother, notice

how she is either too strict or too lenient: wrong for giving up
everything or not enough. Psychology books blame her

for whatever is the matter with all of us while the father
slips into the next room for a beer. I wanted to be

the rational one, the one who told a joke at dinner.
If I were her father we would throw a ball across

the lawn while the grill fills with smoke. But who
wants to be the mother? Who wants to tell her what

to wear and deliver her to the beauty shop and explain
bras and tampons? Who wants to show her what

a woman still is? I am supposed to teach her how to
wash the dishes and do the laundry only I don't want

her to grow up and be like me. I'd rather be the father
who tells her she is loved; I'd rather take her fishing

and teach her to skip stones across the lake of history;
I'd rather show her how far she can spit.

Just my luck

I've never been so happy to see Friday the 13th in all my life. Yesterday was my 34th birthday, and it started with a clingy feverish toddler, a reaction to Wednesday's vaccines. Then Sukey twisted her front left leg on the morning walk. We were really busy at work that evening, and I didn't get out until late. As I was driving home I decided to stop for a yellow light instead of gunning it. I applied pressure to the brake, began slowing, and suddenly the pedal dropped straight to the floorboards. I sailed through the intersection as yellow turned to red. Robb had to wake Mo up to put her in the car to come rescue me. Truly a birthday for the record books: sick kid, limping dog, long shift, brake failure. Seriously, far as brake failure is concerned I was REALLY lucky that it happened when and where it did. And not when the light was already red (and thus launching me into the path of cars crossing the intersection) or in heavy traffic or on the Bay Bridge... It could have been so much worse. It makes me anxious thinking about it, so I'm changing the subject. Who wants to see some recent baby pictures????








I have another busy day at the office tomorrow, while Robb takes Mo to her first swimming lesson. She's going to love it. I'm off to bed now. But I'll leave with a celebratory birthday poem in hopes that my lackluster birthday does not presage a year of doom and gloom.

"Proclamation at a Birth"
by Linda Pastan

Let every tree
burst into blossom
whatever the season.
Let the snow melt
mild as milk
and the new rain wash
the gutters clean
of last year's
prophecies.
Let the guns sweep out
their chambers
and the criminals doze
dreaming themselves
back to infancy.
Let the sailors throw
their crisp white caps
as high as they can
which like so many doves
will return to the ark
with lilacs.
Let the frogs turn
into princes,
the princes to frogs.
Let the madrigals,
let the musical croakings
begin.

Now there is time

"Now I Become Myself"
by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before--"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

Grown-up secrets

It's been a poetry kind of week.

"Unveiling"
by Linda Pastan

In the cemetery
a mile away
from where we used to live,
my aunts and mother
my father and uncles lie
in two long rows,
almost the way
they used to sit around
the long planked table
at family dinners.
And walking beside
the graves today, down
one straight path
and up the next,
I don't feel sad, exactly,
just left out a bit,
as if they kept
from me the kind
of grown-up secret
they used to share
back then, something
I'm not quite ready yet
to learn.

Joys and concerns

"Magnificat" by Mary Ruefle

O Lord, I did walk upon the earth
and my footprints did keep pace with the rain
and I did note, I did note where orange birds
flew up from the puddles thou hast made
and where the toads leapt from your trenches,
but nowhere was there that I could go
for I could not rise from the firmament
upon which I was placed, and nowhere could I
so I kept until I could no more straight
then bent said I am down to make room for the more
and you half hearing did send me down
into the soul of another by mistakes
and I would like to thank you for it
from where I lie, risen in the eye of the other.

* * * * *

I am seizing a rare moment of Momo sleeping late to post. September has been down, down, up, down, up, and down again. More downs than ups. The most notable "up" is the birth of Shalom and Adam's beautiful little girl Zofia. I am so very happy that she is healthly--and that our girls were born in the same year!

Among the downs, I am sorry to report, is my Aunt Julie's death this past Monday. I keep returning in my mind to the fact that I won't talk with her again. It's unacceptable. We were starting to have these fantastic conversations about motherhood. When I thought I broke my foot Julie told me about how she broke her ankle when Paul was 2 years old and Ali was 3 months old. Uncle Rich was working full time, her only bathroom was upstairs, and her kitchen was downstairs. She had to crawl around her house with a newborn while chasing a toddler. "It was 6 weeks of hell!" she told me, even considering the cancer battle she was fighting as she told me. I certainly will miss her for her own sake, but with her passing I've lost another piece of Dad. Both Gran and Grandma gone, Dad and their infant eldest sister Frances, now Julie, leaving only Aunt Pat to keep all of their childhood memories alive. [Here is a link to her obituary in the Salisbury Daily Times.]

So I will be going back to Ocean City for another funeral on Saturday. Over Labor Day weekend I went to Ed Hammond's funeral. He was a partner in my old law firm and only 69. I need to make arrangements with my boss this morning. I am feeling like "that person" at work, always calling out, always some personal drama. I won't be able to get off work Saturday. I need to call my cousins and uncle to say that I love them.

I hear Momo fussing. (And a car alarm?) Time's up.

Just in time

"Bach and My Father"
by Paul Zimmer

Six days a week my father sold shoes
To support our family through depression and war,
Nursed his wife through years of Parkinson's,
Loved nominal cigars, manhattans, long jokes,
Never kissed me, but always shook my hand.

Once he came to visit me when a Brandenburg
Was on the stereo. He listened with care—
Brisk melodies, symmetry, civility, and passion.
When it finished, he asked to hear it again,
Moving his right hand in time. He would have
Risen to dance if he had known how.

"Beautiful," he said when it was done,
My father, who'd never heard a Brandenburg.
Eighty years old, bent, and scuffed all over,
Just in time he said, "That's beautiful."



My Aunt Julie is dying. She is barely retired. Too young like my father her brother. We saw her in March and April, and she met her great-niece. We probably won't get a chance to see her again before the end, new parenthood and work schedules being what they are. Cancer is devouring her organs one by one, now cleaning its teeth with slivers of her bone and patting its greasy belly. She has called upon Hospice. I think of Julie every day now and try not to feel a bottomless sadness about her dying. I try to think about the fact that she has heard beauty every day of her life as a musician, piano and voice teacher, conductor, director, artist, mentor. I remember the sound of her laughter when she throws back her head in delight, eyes glimmering with mischief about a joke or trick or double entendre. And I know that these are the things I will remember later. Joy will be her legacy.

Stick with beer

On this my first Mother's Day, I share with you Tina Fey's "Prayer for a Daughter," which convinces me I need to check out Bossypants. When I was reading the prayer out loud to my sister and my husband (who fell asleep in the armchair about midway through) I interrupted my own reading several times to say, "Yes!" Thanks, Shalom, for sending me the link. Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

In praise of randomness

"Why I'm Here"
by Jacqueline Berger

Because my mother was on a date
with a man in the band, and my father,
thinking she was alone, asked her to dance.
And because, years earlier, my father
dug a foxhole but his buddy
sick with the flu, asked him for it, so he dug
another for himself. In the night
the first hole was shelled.
I'm here because my mother was twenty-seven
and in the '50s that was old to still be single.
And because my father wouldn't work on weapons,
though he was an atomic engineer.
My mother, having gone to Berkeley, liked that.
My father liked that she didn't eat like a bird
when he took her to the best restaurant in L.A.
The rest of the reasons are long gone.
One decides to get dressed, go out, though she'd rather
stay home, but no, melancholy must be battled through,
so the skirt, the cinched belt, the shoes, and a life is changed.
I'm here because Jews were hated
so my grandparents left their villages,
came to America, married one who could cook,
one whose brother had a business,
married longing and disappointment
and secured in this way the future.

It's good to treasure the gift, but good
to see that it wasn't really meant for you.
The feeling that it couldn't have been otherwise
is just a feeling. My family
around the patio table in July.
I've taken over the barbequing
that used to be my father's job, ask him
how many coals, though I know how many.
We've been gathering here for years,
so I believe we will go on forever.
It's right to praise the random,
the tiny god of probability that brought us here,
to praise not meaning, but feeling, the still-warm
sky at dusk, the light that lingers and the night
that when it comes is gentle.

Strange mid-western spring

"Mother"
from Delights and Shadows
by Ted Kooser

Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring clouds
went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.

The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,

for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened

and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

This poem was featured on The Writer's Almanac this morning, and I knew I would have to repost it immediately. Yesterday was heavy with tornado stress, and I've just gone off my thyroid medicine--a combination that left me feeling exhausted. I perched on the couch watching the early news alerts and then began amassing supplies in the central bathroom. The diaper bag, a bowl of water for the dog, a battery operated lantern, the cell phone, my sneakers, and the baby carrier. I imagined putting the baby in the carrier and the sneakers on my feet before picking our way out through the rubble and into the rain. I've seen Twister but still picture tornadoes as dusty events and not rain storms, but they must be that way usually. A dog leash, I forgot to grab Sukey's leash! I had a granola bar but no dog food or fresh water. And I should have filled my pockets with cash and jewelry (if we had a pocket's worth of either) for bartering. Robb would have been tragically swept up in the funnel cloud--sorry, my love, that's the peril of working on a boat in a disaster movie. In reality it would be very hot in the bathroom, the three of us jammed in there panting (the dog) and sweating (the baby and I) for an hour. And boring. Instead we played on the nursery floor across the hall and waited. And Mom called to check on us. I told her about my preparations.

"Make up some bottles and take them into the bathroom with you," she said.

"I don't need bottles. I make milk for her."

"Oh, yeah." She thought for a moment, and then said, "But you know, just in case you are crushed."

"If I am crushed, how is little Mo going to get a bottle open?"

"Maybe you could feed her with one arm. Or you might need bottles in case something fell and only crushed your boobs."

"Only my boobs?" What kind of selective rubble is this?

"You're right, never mind. Your boobs won't be crushed--they're too big."

Everyone's a comedian.

The poem also made me think of Dad and how I had forgotten to remember this the eighth anniversary of his death. Maureen was two weeks old, I was enthralled with her, and I missed it and didn't realize I had missed it until mid-February. I think he would agree, though, that it's only right for new life to trump death. It seems the proper order of things. Oh, but he would have loved her!

Two months

Last Thursday Maureen was two months old. That means I've survived two full seasons of Survivor Newborn. Better yet, so has she! She had a trip to the doctor's on Wednesday and got vaccinated (ouch!) and some new stats:  little Mo weighed 10 pounds 7 ounces and measured 22 inches long.

[**EDITED 3/9/11 TO ADD** I had a feeling that the nurse made a mistake when she weighted baby Mo last Wednesday at her two month checkup. I was sure she was over 11 pounds. Today at the "weigh & feed" she clocked in at 11 pounds 14 ounces.]



"You and I"
by Jonathan Potter

You are a warm front
that moved in from the north,
a blind spot bearing beautiful gifts,
a garden in the air, a golden filament
inscribed with the name of God's hunting dog,
a magic heirloom mistaken for a feather duster,
a fountain in a cow pasture, an anachronistic anagram
annoyed by anonymity, a dollar in the pocket
of a winter coat in summer.

And I am the discoverer of you.

Last night

Maureen Elizabeth was born at 9:42pm, weighing 8 pounds 3 ounces, measuring 17.5 inches long. We are all healthy, sleepy, and ecstatically happy.

"i carry your heart with me"
by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)