on my middle baby turning 10 in 2009...

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

the baby

Some days are so beautiful...






some moments are so rich...









some memories so precious...









that there are no words.

For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion.


But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone?


And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him.
A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

"I thought finding him would be like a grand finale- all built up and anticipated and exciting. It would be a beautiful continuous celebration where everyone involved would want to relive it time and time and time again, knowing each second would be followed by one that's more exciting. I thought we'd celebrate endlessly, so enthralled with the discovery of one another. One would practically hear the brassy fanfare in the background and see the fireworks and hear the cheering.

It couldn't have been further from what actually occurred. Meeting him was like coming home. It was as though I had been traveling for a long long time, exploring different places and trying new things. I did this for so long, I had long forgotten where I came from. I became so accustomed to this, that I didn't even realize that there could be a place where I actually belonged. I didn't even know a place existed, so it never crossed my mind to seek or search or even desire it. When it's like this, coming home isn't a big party or a loud celebration. That long awaited comfort and solitude isn't greeted with noise and exuberance. It doesn't evoke endorphins and adrenaline...

It's just the opposite."

Seamus Heaney may be my favorite poet. He wrote a great commencement speech when he got his honorary doctorate. If anyone who is reading can find a copy of this speech, please send me a link! His display of humility and respect has always impressed me and the way it resonates in his writing is remarkable.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Living

Slow bleak awakening from the morning dream
Brings me in contact with the sudden day.
I am alive--this I.
I let my fingers move along my body.
Realization warns them, and my nerves
Prepare their rapid messages and signals.
While Memory begins recording, coding,
Repeating; all the time Imagination
Mutters: You'll only die.

Here's a new day. O pendulum move slowly!
My usual clothes are waiting on their peg.
I am alive--this I.
And in a moment Habit, like a crane,
Will bow its neck and dip its pulleyed cable,
Gathering me, my body, and our garment,
And swing me forth, oblivious of my question,
Into the daylight--why?

I think of all the others who awaken,
And wonder if they go to meet the morning
More valiantly than I;
Nor asking of this Day they will be living:
What have I done that I should be alive?
O, can I not forget that I am living?
How shall I reconcile the two conditions:
Living, and yet--to die?

Between the curtains the autumnal sunlight
With lean and yellow finger points me out;
The clock moans: Why? Why? Why?
But suddenly, as if without a reason,
Heart, Brain, and Body, and Imagination
All gather in tumultuous joy together,
Running like children down the path of morning
To fields where they can play without a quarrel:
A country I'd forgotten, but remember,
And welcome with a cry.

O cool glad pasture; living tree, tall corn,
Great cliff, or languid sloping sand, cold sea,
Waves; rivers curving; you, eternal flowers,
Give me content, while I can think of you:
Give me your living breath!
Back to your rampart, Death.