I.
A spark.  A glimmer from a tiny sphere.
A soundless, super-real explosion lights
The unseen dark. From nothing, life ignites
And you emerge; a sleeping pioneer.
You bloom within a sunless atmosphere,
Your every possibility a bright
Determined path, unknown to all who might
Desire to know; a fixed, arcane frontier.
But here and now you grow; from reddish soil
And warm wet mother’s love your cells divide,
Become the you we’ll see and know and name.
And even now, I feel my heartstrings coil
Around the you that isn’t yet, a wide
Expanse of love that’s waiting for your claim.

II.
I knew the day you’d come. I’m not sure how.
I like to think of it as part of all
The many other things that I now fall
Upon to keep my heart from breaking now.
We’d taken bets on dates that you might show;
Made light of our impatience with the sprawl
Of time ahead, a guessing-game to stall
Our restlessness, as time dripped long and slow.
I made my guess; I knew it right away,
Like from inside our mother’s womb you spoke
And I could hear; no longer “I” but “We.”
And sure enough – as though in clear display
Of where we stood – on that day you awoke,
Too early and too late for all but me.

III.
I couldn’t know what I was wishing for
When, in my lonely moments as a child
I dreamed up little siblings and beguiled
Myself for hours, though always wanting more.
And when my dreaming failed, I’d then implore
My mother’s help, and at my plea she smiled,
Saying “Someday, maybe,” vague and mild.
But “someday” always left me feeling poor.
I couldn’t know what I was dreaming of
Until the day they told me you were real,
And wishing turned to waiting after all.
I couldn’t know the boundlessness of love
Until I saw and felt and knew Ideal,
A more-than-perfect answer to my call.

IV.
Your face looked like a bird when you were born,
With open, waiting mouth and pointed nose.
When Grandpa saw you he agreed, and chose
To call you “Wren,” though now it’s long outworn.
Your tiny features grew as if to scorn
The tender nickname, like a child who throws
Away a much-loved toy that it outgrows,
And finds itself too occupied to mourn.
And yet to me, your face still looks the same,
With open, waiting eyes and pointed mind,
Though nose and mouth are different from before.
And though your job as child is to rename
Yourself to match as you are redefined,
That hungry baby bird is at the core.

V.
For every day I’ve known you I have learned.
At first I learned what ‘beautiful’ could mean,
When in your new red wrinkles I discerned
A shocking beauty, hitherto unseen.
The thing you taught me next was how to love;
I’d done that sort of thing before, I thought.
But being your big sister went above
And far beyond the love that I’d been taught.
I felt myself becoming something new,
A person that you needed me to be.
And though it seemed that I was teaching you,
I realize now that you were teaching me.
The only lesson I have failed to grasp
Is how to get my heart to now unclasp.

VI.
When looking back upon our lives so far,
I cannot help but wonder what went wrong.
You were to me the world, and still you are,
But also worlds away and pulled along
By hunger, anger, fear, mistrust – all things
I would have kept from you if I had been
In charge. And now, although my heart still clings
Unfailingly to yours, my strength wears thin.
I cannot change the past, although I would
If life allowed such choices to be made.
I’d gladly give up all the years I could,
If any could be given back. But swayed
As you have been by time we’ve lost,
I see that years are not the only cost.

VII.
My girl, the way I’ve loved you isn’t fair.
Not fair to you, for being to a child
A thing it needs – like water or like air -
And then to leave as one who’s been exiled,
To never call or write except to say
“I’m sorry that I didn’t call before,”
Is selfishness that sorrys can’t allay.
Unfair to think that love was something sure -
A changeless, timeless thing that doesn’t bend,
Or wear or break, that, once it’s grown, will thrive
Without much care, a thing not hard to mend,
A thing one doesn’t feed to keep alive.
Not fair to me, for loving so that now,
My life means little but what sorrow can allow.

VIII.
Instead of this, I want what used to be.
I want be around, to laugh and talk
And fight (no we don’t fight) and this for free,
Not where I trade in order just to knock.
Not even trade, for now my knocking sounds
Like silence to you, snow that falls on snow
Already fell. And as my fist now pounds
Your door I think instead of your window.
I toss a tiny pebble first, and think
You hear, but still the empty window stares.
I try again, this time with louder ‘clink’
And yet, no Alex through the window glares.
My desp’rate heart now reaches for a stone;
The glass is broke, but I am still alone.

IX.
I didn’t make you. From my body you
Weren’t grown or born. I didn’t give you life
Or feel the pains of motherhood break through.
My body never fed you, or my strife.
I never had to feel how, like a knife
You cut and tore your way into this world,
Your body breaking mine a bit, and rife
With joy and pain, that body to me curled.
Your mother I am not, but mother you’ve unfurled.

X.
I take each day with something like chagrin,
Now that I never see you anymore.
I know I’ll never find a way to win
Your trust again, or makes things like before.
And though I cannot possibly ignore
The hurt I’ve caused or felt by being gone,
I’ll never give up trying to restore
To life the tender love that’s been withdrawn,
And in the midst of loss, find strength to live upon.