You are sleeping, newly, fresh,
your breath a gentle sigh.
I find you after a journey
so long, long with remarkable stars
and midnight hymns. Angels descending with Angels
their voices, stillness, sing joy.
The walk here broke my feet and my heart,
snapped the straps that tied me to a life
I was no longer living,
that did not hold me, freed me
from the relentless, empty question
of whether there was a You,
and so, whether there was a me.
How can we live without someone seeing us?
No, it is not possible. My eyes are wide,
and your gaze, infinite.
Tonight, I find home, in this scent of wild
arrivals: precious you, the mother and father,
the obliging animals, the friends who came with me,
bundled against the wooden trough
watching you breathe, soft, ordinary.
In this finding, this unexpected advent, I am
over-awed – overflowing - over-loved and
committed to you, now born with you,
While I do not appear again in your story,
I am the beginning of everyone’s story
who loves you, who seeks you, who finds you.
I am the friend of your mother,
the witness of your father,
the first voice of the widening circle.
I am the shepherd who left his flocks
in the deepest night, for one remarkable quest,
chosen for an extraordinary task,
to see you, to be seen,
invited to know how your breath
lifts quietly from your chest
holding all the world, holding all my world.
Your breath, like my breath,
your breath, God’s breath,
swaddling me with ancient hope,
that I carry with me from the barn
into fields of sweet loam,
into the heart of the seeker,
into the mind of one sought.
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