When you were born we all gathered round you,
first of the grandchildren, boychild, we were the planets to
you, Sun, and our stories today, carry the dust of
decades, your singular mysteries, your wanderings
and returns.
You remember how your father and grandfather
woke you at dawn to watch the morning rise over
the lake, greet the hour of your birth again, let the
waters of the world bless your being, much as you
only wished to stay tucked against your mother’s sleepshirt
Chicago was eons ago. And Paris, and Jerusalem,
whose guardians sent you home, as you were barefoot
and strange then, even as you only wanted to love
the world and walk in love’s footsteps. Those days you
believed in providence and how service might save you.
Today, all you want is to sleep late
and let the sun rise without you, your wife’s secret
Chai Recipe, and to drink in our faces, to thank us
for our smiling mouths, our awkward singing and
our small constellation of unquestioning, unconditional devotion.
Early Morning Poems 