Welcome to the World Little Ones

For Isabella, Gabriel & Alex, Clementine, Elanora (and some still on the way...)

My friends are having babies. Many many babies.
And what is there to do but become enamored with
the possibilities born of our world
when wonder and grace filled people
make the radical decision to multiply?

It's radical. It is because our world quickly crashes
any naive eschatology promising safety,
painlessness or gauranteed success
for any child. Any child.

Here they are anyway, their mere existence a testament of hope
reaching from the guts of sperm donors, mommy bears
and delivery dancing dads.

My soul stands up, claps, and refuses to sit down
even when the ovation has grown long and others have begun to subtly
gesture their tired and time-bound allegiance.
Keep standing, I say! This is the stuff of true celebration, of worship.

And if we are not indoctrinated into new types of responsibility
by the mere announcement of pregnancy,
then shame upon shame,
for these are the holy whispers of futures untouched,
members of a new order,
a new order that altars our world and
asks of us new symbols, gestures and language, asking:
what do you, dear pilgrim, bring to this table?

They have come from bellies over-swollen and
ribcages close to collapse, from mothering giants overwhelmed with discomfort.
They have come impossibly, through pain and tearing and sleepless nights
to awaken the dead and sluggish from their slumber,
to announce the myriad of miracles in flight,
still searching for open hearts to occupy.

Welcome. Welcome.