In My Heart the Sun
In My Heart the Sun
For Silas
Next to me, a sleeping baby
the safety
of his hands near cheeks
the same place they were
when he was born
and though it’s raining
its heavy pattering on steel
I can hear his soft breathing
his contentedness, his innocence
so lovely under all this
this morning
now this
this thunderstorm
seeming so closely violent,
the quick occlusion
of light
leaving
only a memory
of the stillness of
this summer morning
where we walked within
the softness of warm
fog that muted detail and distilled
this life into silhouette,
a few lines as whole
within this
as I changed his diaper
felt the softness of his belly on my cheek
told him how
this was the way I saw
the mountain
the morning of his birth
looking out,
thinking it would be the last
I would see it through these eyes
as I closed the door
to become a mother
I told him how
my golden sequins
seemed to glow
under that morning
under that fog
how someone from a distance
might of thought us light itself
and how I held the sea
roses, magenta, aglow
and how I rubbed the petals
between my fingers
so we’d have something lovely
to fall back on,
always,
the scent of
how I looked up once more
hand on him
and whispered into fog’s depth
I love you
I can’t wait to walk through the world with you
And I didn’t know how
it would change
as we walked through this life together
but how I thought it would
if giving life
is as transformative
as watching death
then the difference would be more
than the subtle newness of day
and so it all seems so close
to this: how within me there is
always the quiet of that morning
and yet, too, this sudden storm
inseparable,
this heavy-lightness of having
in my heart the sun
the rain
even the very seed
the most complex simplicity
and here,
right here, the breathing
the very breath of a baby