Everything beeps when it is finished

Everything beeps when it is finished
   
    in this house. The washer and dryer sing an ice cream truck tune, the coffee beeps, the    
    rice cooker beeps. These are also voices inside the house.

Now it is Saturday

Now it is Saturday
   
     Now you see a magnolia tree and its pink flowers for the first time. Now it is Easter. Now it is     
     Passover. Now it is now, over and over.

"Constellation, (Natural Symmetry)"

"Constellation, (Natural Symmetry)" by Hannah Luxton

Each day I am writing a new story

Each day I am writing a new story
   
    but each day will also become sewn together in a larger story, and each year that book
    will be sewn between empty covers that grow fuller, fuller, fuller. And a shelf awaits. And
    a whole library.

All from love, and no fear

All from love, and no fear

    is what Elie Tahari tells the fashion designers on Project Runway. I watch episode after
    episode while you nurse, while you sleep. Teach me about stillness.

Taking you into the sun

Taking you into the sun

    I learn how strong the light is, how strong the wind is. Mommy: a shield.

The streets all end in leaf

The streets all end in leaf
   
    in our neighborhood: Palmleaf, Littleleaf, and our street, Starleaf. If the streets are
    branches, the houses are leaves. If the streets are leaves, the houses are its veins, its
    across-the-palm creases.

We’re going around the block

We’re going around the block

    and as we pass a thing I share its simplest name. A tree. A pond. A bird. A rock. I ask you    
    if you see them. This is my way of giving them to you.

No one sees any of this happen

No one sees any of this happen

    except the mother. Except the baby. It is unremarkable, but there is beauty there. The    
    house grows up around them, a pumpkin, a carriage, a hollow tree.
   

I live in a hollow tree

I live in a hollow tree

    So says the book that the baby loves. Not for what the words mean, but for their sounds.    
    For the way his mother flutters her fingers over the pages and says wwwwshhhhh to    
    make the snow tumble.

Naps are lilypads

Naps are lilypads
   
    for the baby, his brain. He will hop toward who he is becoming, hour by hour.

The baby sleeps two hours this afternoon

The baby sleeps two hours this afternoon

    so that inside himself his body can grow. These two hours will not be remembered. He    
    will not look back on them fondly, because he will not look back on them at all.

The day she comes home from the hospital

The day she comes home from the hospital

    Full of bruises and stitches, she stubs her toe on the changing table. This is the first new    
    injury after he’s born. It surprises her, that this hurts a little, like before she was a mother.

We cry for the refugees

We cry for the refugees
   
    Only after their children drown. Only after we see the photograph.

She Didn't Remember Remembering That Song

She didn’t remember remembering that song

    but while kissing her baby son’s toes, she starts singing, Kookaburra sits in the old gum    
    tree...This is how we know that music and time are both made of fishhooks.

How will I get through this time

How will I get through this time

    Because it will end. As will the ember of all that you experience, your very ability to    
    experience in and of itself.

One day, you’ll wish for this back

One day, you’ll wish for this back

    is what every mother she knows passes along to her, their voices pinched with    
    clothespins clinging onto sheets that balloon and billow and jerk.