Blessings

Dear Preeta and Rob,
It's finally spring here in New England, and every tree is bursting with pink and white and yellow, and the bees are back. This season is even more exciting for me because I imagine the two of you making yourselves as ready as you can for the coming of a new baby. This is the luckiest baby in the world, to have you amazing people as parents. But I'm sure when he/she arrives he/she will be just as extraordinary and wonderful and creative and fun and clever and witty as the two of you. I can't wait to see you all together and meet this amazing small person who is coming...
I wanted to send you a poem a poem about birth, but it's hard to find one that isn't sprinkled with cheese or else about death (plop). I'm working on it. In the meantime, this is one of my favorite poems to give as a marker of a time of beauty and change.
I love you both (and all three of you!)
Ayelet

blessing the boats

(at St. Mary's)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love you back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this into that

-Lucille Clifton

You're

This is one of my favorite poems from parent to child--you may know it already. Okay, yes, it's from Sylvia Plath, whom we do not usually view as particularly loving. But I love her tenderness towards her unborn child in this poem. Much love to you both and your high-riser, your little loaf.


You're

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark, as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools' Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

- Sylvia Plath