Stepping Out

There was a lot of joy this Friday, visiting my precious daughter for her birthday.We had plenty to celebrate, this year especially, this week especially, that day especially. Earlier in the morning I'd gotten a little mushy about this glorious affair of being a mother to my daughter all these many years.

It's more than I can go into, but I'll record here a portion of poem I'd been reading by Louise Gluck that sent me into a misty state of awe over the whole thing, the whole cycle of life, the whole wonder of being alive, being here and being lost, living and dying.

This is why you were born: to silence me.
Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn
to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.

I improvised; I never remembered.
Now it's your turn to be driven;
you're the one who demands to know:

Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?
Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;
it is your turn to address it, to go back asking
what am I for? What am I for?