Friday, August 9, 2013

of starfish and startle



Max comes

even in utero
he would throw up his hands and kick out his legs
as if he morphed into a starfish,
an image that came to his mother
who felt it repeatedly inside her,
and then watched the infant born
who would fully react that way
to something he felt and which made him act,

as I hold him now, he almost startles
in how quickly and surely his head and attention shift,





the world full of circus rings,
each of which can be worth his full attention,

when his attention progresses into approval and a smile,
we are undone,


we all come into consciousness as strangers in a strange land,
anthropologists who seek to learn the language and the customs 
of these new people,

Max is on the way to knowing the world and his own body,
and how who he is might interact
with what is and with what can be.


by Henry H. Walker
August 5, ’13

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