New Life

new life

is rare, but blossoms everyday

I often ignore it, like the old lover dancing slowly in the dimly lit corners of the ballroom

pretending she does not notice me noticing her

evil, pain, and worry cannot be ignored

without the heart's slow and torturous atrophy

one can try, but it will find its way to burrow under our skin

like a leech drawn to the pulsing of our blood

but life can be ignored everyday

without a second thought

we are buried in routines, rush hour, paperwork, lectures, networking, dreams and ideals

we run circles in our brains, drill holes into our hearts

all in the name of progress and sufficiency.

Yet new life makes no epic demands for attention.

It is not in the earthquakes, tsunamis, the fires or the winds.

there is no breaking news or grand headline to announce its arrival or sustain our attention.

like the sparrows that dance around our feet on a sunny day,

like dandelion seeds floating high above the city towers,

like the first dance of a newly wed couple holding their breath in anticipation,

new life goes forth each day.

.. .

he cannot be ignored.

I notice every detail.

he swings his head, puckers his lips, rolls his eyes blindly.

he is everything I had never thought of.

small enough to hold with one arm,

yet heavy enough to demolish entire lives.

he suckles on his mother's breast in quiet peace,

he rests wrapped in animals and flora,

he discards what he does not need with tiny grunts,

he fears cold, nakedness, loneliness, and gasps in high pitched shrills,

he makes me want to sing, joyful nonsense pouring from my lips day and night.

the thousands of doubts and fears that stormed like a blizzard

burying my streets and windows under masses of frozen fear

melt, and I feel something soft, something warm.

it dyes the light like stained glass, adjusting the eyes to a new visual rhythm.

a faint and sleepy shimmer appears on the old, the unsaid, the forgotten.

it beckons me to polish and rediscover the beauty beneath the dust and ashes.

"what is this new place I am in?" he asks by way of a long and vocal sigh,

as he rests in my arms, cooing like a young dove.

a new spirit rests upon me.

here is my son, in whom I delight.

I try and decipher the grammar of creation once more.

I consider making things new again.

The Awful Rowing Toward God (by Anne Sexton)

I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world...

but I grew, I grew,
and Go was there like an island I had not rowed to...

I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball

but I am rowing, I am rowing
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.