brattleboro memorial hospital, 9/3/2007
will your arrival
be announced
by sages who sprint,
or expressed in random deeds
of philanthropy?
will your coming
be told by the blaring
of a million gilded horns?
will it be stated
by parading elephants,
bedecked with silk scarves?
will your arrival
be as joyous, as brief, as your making?
will your coming push the boundaries
of time and space, mirror the ferocity
of a rocket seeking escape
from its launch pad?
all this will come to pass.
your birth, at once a summary execution
of every preconceived doubt,
held by post-traumatic parents
eager to share their nightmares,
this confederation of fears
as culturally ingrained as greed,
and all should be swept into the gutter
of no one else's labor.
will your arrival
shock the heavens into complacency
and force hell
to close its borders?
will your coming
be something that headlines relish
or be as anonymous as a single star
tucked under
the milky way's duvet?
will your arrival
be as joyous, as brief, as your making?
