(June 10, 2011 - June 10, 2011)
Dear daughter,
We called you Gertrude as a placeholder before you were born and when you were taken from us after only a few minutes, it didn't seem right to call you anything else. It took me ages to be able to write anything about you but I finally did this January and wrote about naming you. There's so much I would like to say to you. But I'll say happy birthday for now. I miss you. I'll be seeing you.
CRADLE SONG
And what should I call you, little daughter? Cartographer of
expectation,
the blue veins beneath your translucent skin a map to the
branches of hope
and all its tributaries? Strong spear that shakes itself
loose from my grasp
and falls to earth without a sound, tight as I grip? Rock
against which will shatter
the future’s glassine dodecahedron? Repetition of my toes
and the toes of my maternal grandfather before me? Foxes run
wild
in the vineyard. Sailors go down to the sea in ships.
Antelope leap
across the sunburned veldt, faster than the fastest lion.
And you sleep
attended by my indelible wishes, by holding on and letting
go,
by the instantaneity of pure affection, by love which is all
you’ll ever know.
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