Cry of the Stars

Little Bean is learning how to grasp
and hasn’t got the hang of it yet;

things keep slipping
through her tiny fingers

and i’m imprudently
melancholic, wondering how soon
she’ll need to learn
to just let them go.

then again

do we ever learn, in the end?
have we ever grasped anything
in the first place?

i’m not strong enough to hold you
against the world, or death,
or even tomorrow—still

i think,
i think

i would like to hold you anyway.

Long months of darkness saw
your careful shaping, each detail intricate
as a passerine’s nest, your snowdrop petal fingers
and sugar maple veins: winter’s
lovestruck gift to summer.

The day you arrived,
Zephyrus whirled his brothers aside and
swept us into his arms, laughing,
while we kissed your new skin like gentle sunlight,
a sudden touch of joy that stirred the daffodils
and woke the sleeping thrushes—

something of you made us wild
with life, and our fevered happiness went singing
like the wind, and we told your name
to the flickering moon, and we whispered it
to the tender rain that fell,

and it tangled in wet branches—
our love among white blossoms, nestled
in the crook of an arm,
some sweet place in the dark
where the dogwoods had begun to bloom.