I read this poem (scroll down) on Jora's blog. I immediately loved it, and wanted to save it so it can be pulled out as we watch Rigel grow. It was perfect timing, too. Today was one of those days when I allowed the negative details to outweigh the good (i.e., tantrums, testing the boundaries, and the likes). How easy I stray away from the simple fact that the good details always outweigh the bad when you are fortunate enough to experience motherhood and to witness firsthand the innocence of a child.
Daedalus
by Alastair Reid
My son has birds in his head.
I know them now. I catch
the pitch of their calls, their shrill
cacophonies, their chitterings, their coos.
They hover behind his eyes and come to rest
on a branch, on a book, grow still,
claws curled, wings furled.
His is a bird world.
I learn the flutter of his moods,
his moments of swoop and soar.
From the ground I feel him try
the limits of the air--
sudden lift, sudden terror--
and move in time to cradle
his quivering, feathered fear.
At evening, in the tower,
I see him to sleep and see
the hooding-over of eyes,
the slow folding of wings.
I wake to his morning twitterings,
to the croomb of his becoming.
He chooses his selves--wren, hawk,
swallow or owl--to explore
the trees and rooftops of his heady wishing.
Tomtit, birdwit.
Am I to call him down, to give him
a grounding, teach him gravity?
Gently, gently.
Time tells us what we weigh, and soon enough
his feet will reach the ground.
Age, like a cage, will enclose him.
So the wise men said.
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