(a poem in celebration of my youngest son’s home birth)

**Christopher passed away in August 2012 leaving behind 2 young boys**

You.

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You born in 2/4 time.
An 87 minute movement. Allegro.

Bath water still running.
Father focused but flailing.
Mother focused and firm.
Hands ready and soft.

I first feel your hair. Like mossy soft algae with whispy dirty strawberry highlights and I take full responsibility for that.

Next touch…your skin is made from the ghosts of all the flower pedals that have ever lived, lined with October clouds.
The rest of you is shaped by your mother.

You. Breathe.
You. Move.

This night, your birth-night, fills my belly with it’s stars.

At times your brother will sing to you when your frustration drowns your throat.

Your father has moments when the temples pillars become his bones.

And your mother can quilt all of this into a home.

You. The peace you make greets me in every doorway.

In your lungs my son, is your name, inhaled by Shakespear’s and bums.

Tyranny and Jesus drank from the same rain that falls into your Sippy Cup.

And this Arizona red dirt has a story of gratitude. Wings for lovers under it’s skin and a front porch of infinite mornings – stars fading where birds begin.

And you.

You begin your crisp mornings making overjoyed ramblings. Tis a workout following hard you big brothers footsteps. And yet sometimes I doubt the wind.

Find too much red in the landscape. That Manzanita is twisting the wrong way. My sinuses confirm Gods’ hate for me…Juniper!
And too many men having too many meetings wasting too many minutes on the future.

My how your father forgets that words make thoughts heavy; become fists when formed and hurt when delivered.
How your father can loose himself in the final thoughts of Pompeii streets, the graves of fallen soldiers, the hard-drives of archaic machines…anywhere but now.

So it’s you.

You, born.

Wind upon wind.

Layered crescendos.

Into my hands, soft grace against you mothers chest.

You, starting you art career early with black marker, distracted parents and blank rented house walls.

You, rolling over, crawling, shuffling, running, peddling, swinging, swimming, climbing.

“Hey, where ya goin’?”
“Ok. Well, come home soon!”

It’s you. That reminds me that i was never born a poet, I was raised to be a bender of dark lines so the illuminated seem brighter.

And I raise you right here, in deep red dirt.

Surrounded by arroyos, coyotes and people that can’t really explain why we stay so we paint, sing, sculpt, play our reasons.

We bend light by opening our front doors on infinite front porch mornings. Fill our bellies with what’s left of stars and listen to song…

“You see? There my sons. This

is where

birds

begin.”