Happy Birthday, Christopher

Happy 27th birthday to my first born! Here is a poem from those early days of motherhood, written for him when he was almost two years old.

Happiness

is wound up in Christopher

as he winds himself in me.

A bubbling, simmering happiness.

He putters

around the yard

busy with cars, trucks, rocks.

I watch

his chubby face and bobbing yellow hat

running after Dickens.

His song is simple

as he carefully walks the bricks:

Toe, heel, toe, heel.

He takes his joy

from whatever he wishes---

like scraping frosting off a cake.

My joy

is like ice cream melting inside:

soft and sweet.

It trickles down to say.

"Thank you,

Christopher,

for being my baby."

March 7, 1985