Already almost April, your birth month,
nine new moons since sockeye salmon
sluiced up the Talkeetna, since the great sow
lumbered into the river, cubs trailing her,
since a man knelt and dipped his paw
into the icy rush, and with one swipe
became your father. Now we set flowers
and twigs in your mother’s hair, rub
her feet with scented oil, brew blackberry
tea, pots of it, as much as she wants—
she is suffused with you, child, and
you are full of everything that made you—
the nebula that lofted up your molecules,
the high place hidden in clouds, shifting light,
cotton grass, blood and bone and amber,
the love that set you swimming . . .