Poem for Wesley and Oliver

When Wesley and Oliver were born, I found this poem. I think it's very sad, but still, I love it. It's by Kathleen Norris. I don't really understand the biblical connection - if you do, please write a comment.

Ascension

"Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" Acts 1:1

It wasn't just wind chasing
thin, gunmetal clouds
across a loud sky;
it wasn't the feeling that one might ascend
on that excited air,
rising like a trumpet note,
and it wasn't just my sister's water breaking,
her crying out,
the downward draw of blood and bone...

It was all of that,
mud and new grass
pushing up through melting snow,
the lilac in bud by my front door
bent low
by last week's ice storm.

Now the new mother, that leaky vessel,
begins to nurse her child,
beginning the long good-bye.

Poems for all of us

I have a poem for each of my pregnancies, and then one for my postpartum self. This one, St. Francis and the Sow, is my poem for myself, and only partly because it's so hard to lose weight. The poem for my first pregnancy (Ian, Simon, and Gordon) is Wendell Berry's Her First Calf, but it's locked up in our storage unit. Does anyone have that text? E-mail it to me if you do. I'll post that, and the other two poems, shortly.

St. Francis and the Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of the earth on the sow,

and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Galway Kinnell

Why am I smiling?

Because Max slept six hours last night!!! I didn't sleep as long as he did, because I wake up every few hours out of habit, and just check to see if he's breathing. But the end of severe sleep deprivation is in sight!!

Updates

Oliver was diagnosed yesterday with viral-onset asthma. When he gets a virus, it goes straight to his lungs and his body overreacts with coughing and wheezing. Treatment: daily nebulizer with pulmacort for one month, then neb as needed when colds begin. Dr says he's likely to outgrow it within a few years, though he might have an elevated risk of allergies or exercise asthma later.

The doctor's visit involved all five Parises and the pediatric pulmonologist in an adequately sized but inadequately vented room, sweating. The boys amused themselves with toys, crayons, stickers, puke pans, urine cups, the sink, the trash, the baby, and the doorknob. As evidence of what a good mother I am, in addition to listening to the doctor, taking notes, playing with Oliver and Wesley (dad had Max), managed to also begin blaming myself for Oliver's health. I shouldn't have waited this long to bring him in, shouldn't have birthed him prematurely, shouldn't have conceived multiples, shouldn't have been born myself... but then looked at James and remembered how he doesn't have that instinct to blame. He wants a solution and gets frustrated when one can't be found, but he doesn't backtrack into the past to assign blame. I decided to set aside my own train of thought and adopt his: let's just work together to help Oliver be as healthy as he can be.

Wesley is healthy and growing. God has blessed him with a tremendous rib cage and upper body capacity, which I'm sure he will use one day to be a blessing to others.

Max has remarkably large eyes that he opens remarkably wide. That's pretty much what James said about my face, too, during labor and delivery.

James and I are planning the boys' 2-year birthday party. They turn 2 on June 13! James turns 41 on June 9.

Officer Paris on duty

A treasure found at the park

Wesley emerging

Any guesses as to what happened two seconds before I snapped the photo?

Max really isn't bald...uh, his hair just doesn't show in this light

Summer buzz cut #1 (Wesley)

Summer Buzz Cut #2 (Ollie)