[For Calliope]
My daughter leapt into the world
After nine months of uterine back flips
(and back pain)
Writing graffiti
on the walls of her womb
Head-first-diving into life
like a supernova.
*
My daughter dove into existence
on a day when all over the world
people were dying before they lived
not paying attention to their wide, wondrous world.
She cried out to them
(I heard her)
Wake up! I am here!
*
My daughter brought forth her world on a day like any other:
the wide, soft earth cried out beneath the suffering of her children
who–some of them–took their blink-of-an-eye existence & danced upon suffering
singing Calliopean songs of rebirth.
Even on the day her father tearfully called his mother
sitting by his brother’s deathbed.
We needed some good news, she said.
*
My daughter brought forth an entire universe
from her speck-of-dust soul–
We had waited so long for her:
Since the day I saw her mother,
on that porch,
drinking homemade wine
So many years ago
*
Since the day when I watched my own little brother
(my daughter will do better than I did)
come home from the hospital
Since the days when the ancestors wandered over seas and mountains
to lose themselves
and to find
Each other.
*
Still longer, we have waited:
Since the days when the entire universe was written
in a single book
–the original speck-of-dust–
& danced its dance, sang its song
& wrote its new poem: stars pressed across the sky
(is this what you painted on the walls of your womb?)
*
& now, you are here:
Like the rest, you will get only a blink of an eye
(I cannot lie)
but we’ve waited for you so long
to sing your Calliopean song.
We needed some good news:
& you are it.
September 18, 2013
From the website of a student of Brian Swimme’s; https://theodorerichards.com/http:/theodorerichards/the-day-my-daughter-was-born-part-ii-a-gestational-epic
