Nursing Buddha

My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,

The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of
the wind,

The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,

The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

Here’s to Walt, a gorgeous handmade hat, the rosy cheeks of winter, the fluffy delight of a cloth-diapered booty and the absolute perfection of a swing on a beautiful day.

Notes on development: She can say da, ba, and gah. So we’re hearing her actual voice for the first time, not just her fussy or crying or humming voice. The voice that will turn the babble to words and words to sentences and sentences to a lifelong conversation. In short, amazing. She also had her half-birthday in this time span. I can’t get over how much she’s changed and how fast it’s gone. How did the formless, glossy-eyed newborn become this person with her own voice and ways of being and thinking and figuring?