in celebration of birth

Today, fifty-some years ago, twenty four how I feel, millions the age of my spirit, I was pushing my elbow into my mother, trying to make a little more space, and sighed, the sigh an unborn baby does without air, kind of like a hiccup into water, all silent, soft movements, and I thought the thoughts of unthinking, before words came one by one to crowd a new fresh brain, and I readied to flow downstream into my new life. Into my mother's arms, my father's embrace, into the air, the loudness. Into the land of corners and hard surfaces. And I would always seek oceans and rivers, I would return over and over to songs of water for my hungry ears.

Here I am on the alpaca farm, driving daily along Patterson Creek, to the Snoqualmie and Raging Rivers at Fall City, up the long hill to the Falls, through Snoqualmie and into North Bend. All these rivers. They are my sisters. My mother. I watch the light from the broad sky bend down, it shimmers on wet pavement, streaks across the water. Warms my face.

Here's to life. Thank you for being here with me.

for my daughters Heather & Kelsey

T.L. Stokes