The flower is always the bud’s undoing.

Let go then.

~Pavithra Mehta

many miles to go before we sleep…

inquiry for today~ your heart can always lead….

don’t turn away…..

I. 

Spring comes —

warm fragrance and light

ripple across the earth,

tender pink and white

opening

It is the first spring 

our daughter can walk.

She grips my finger

her blue cap tilted

each step a small surprise. 

Her bright mouth

forms my name.

II.

Before they wake, I sit

I breathe,

a train rolls through the dark

and enters the open window

each morning

before dawn

birdsong still arrives 

Last night, somewhere else

the sky split open again—

rockets screeching

a home unmade into stone and dust

a family

running toward nothing

they can name. 

III.

Morning after morning

the hills lift their green belly to the sun

ashes lift in the wind

I wake to my daughter breathing beside me

to coffee, dishes, and headlines

to the ground shifting

I make breakfast.

There are eggs, butter, oats

the table feels so solid.

My children make each other laugh.

I walk upstairs and sit at my desk.

Engines cross another darkness

Families bend over broken names

the beautiful mouths 

of those they love.

IV.

My son’s wide, hazel eyes

gaze up at me

waiting

His hair is so soft 

against my lips.

I hold one thread

of a cloth so vast

I will never see the end.

Every child, everywhere,

whose name I will never know

is here.

Rain arrives

touching everything.

I bend down

to feel the earth.

~Oren Jay Sofer