For Maryam Nour Al-Din Wael Daban, Age 0

 

You, too, littered unto wisp. Made

Helix of ash from welter of dreaming. 

Can I tell you about the world? 

It promises nothing. Without us

It is quietest. Soft green, lulling

Wave, tectonics jutting bulkheads

Into skies silvered by cloud. It wears

A thousand winds. It is all scar

& recovery, all buried life feeding

Into a burgeoning we struggle yet

To name. We are the worst of it. Our

Taxonomies. You

Know this. But we have in us

Elemental grace, somewhere.

We want, I think, to love. Our veins

Are estuaries, our shoulderblades swales

Of unwrit land. We carry joy’s

Capacity & either quell it or set 

Flint to stone for spark. We can be–

Almost– the porosities that better us.

Maryam, you knew, I hope, a tenderness

Before the worst shocked through. I count

Your breaths. I sing your name. 

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