New Life

Very recently three different friends (couples) of mine had babies. Alison and Kit had little Emma Lee, Sake and Martine had little Cameron, and Alyssa and Luke had little Aurelie. They are all such beautiful little human beings and it’s amazing to think of how they came into the world. It’s strange to have friends who are having kids just because I’m not at that time in life yet, but at the same time it’s pretty cool to witness. The image below is of a piece of art that I recently created for Luke and Alyssa of a poem that they wanted represented in a graphic way that they could hang in their nursery (although I have no idea what the title is or who wrote it!). I created the piece by overlaying a graphic of the text printed on transparency onto a watercolour painting, and used some sketch paper in between to mute it out a bit. My thought was that Luke and Alyssa can eventually replace the background with a drawing done by their little girl! I really like the poem and so I thought I would share it!Poem

For the three of us it ended up being forty weeks

give or take,

but for you O Little One,

well? Tell me, love.

What thoughts by means of speech,

Beyond mountains of religious cosmogony and creed,

beyond scientific display,

could unsettle the first gaze of your parents:

in their eyes

always

miracle,

well? Tell me, love.

Squaling presence,

awesom possibility

almost unbelievable event:

You becoming.

Well? Tell me, love.

Splitting of an egg,

invisible speck of protoplasm,

on another time-scale

big bang.

What on earth are you?

Well? Tell me, love.

I imagine Wisdom dwelling with you,

before you decided together “It’s time.”

What She whispered to your heart there,

I burn to remember.

Living, fiery essence of what it means to be.

Whatever it is, glowing with us today,

in water,

in leaf,

in warm sleeping skin.

Well? Tell me, love, can you breath it in now, still knowing?

Blast of the thundered Word lying in bed with us…

Crazy.

The more obvious wonder:

That you, for forty weeks,

knew how to breathe under water.

One secret our Maker has let me in on,

in letting me kiss the flying joy,

of tender, intimate, fear and trembling – the occasion of your birth:

that your arrival on the scene

and life to be,

is, in short,

about learning again

what you already knew.

How to breathe under water.

To be born again of Spirit and of Water.

I forgot, unfortunately, but you…

Well? Tell me, love.

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