Occasional Poem

When we were gathering our prayer stick materials
for your birthday celebration, having listened
on the way to your grandparents’ house in Carbondale
to a podcast on the rich cultural history
of summer solstice traditions, I imagined you
(it was easy) as some timeless wildling—sylvan nymph
on a pilgrimage to the unlikely mecca
of the backyard stump we chose as our altar
to teach us how to dance with the mystery of existence.
But the truth is, it was still a good two hours
until you were born nine years before.
Your mother said you had elf ears; the doc said,
with cautious severity, that you had
twelve toes; an extra finger. The truth is,
you were a baby human. You didn’t exist then you did.
I won’t pretend to know what that means
exactly, and I won’t attempt to explain why now
I remember that you and Jean Paul Sartre
share a birthday. When I read this to you today 
you will carry out of it what you can.
You’ll remember the day: balloons; presents; the cake.   
But years from now, at some unknown point
down the jeweled chain that connects every quivering
event, maybe you’ll stumble into this poem
as if into a room in a mansion of rooms.
In one dark corner or another you might find
a question wrapped in colors as bright
as the sun. Holding the question by its feathery edges
maybe you’ll see yourself like I see you
now, in my imagination, standing where we gathered
at dusk. There you are smiling down
at the flowers. I’m with you on one side. Your mother   
on the other. We’re holding hands. Our arms
stretched in a circle. Our mouths are full of prayers.