For Your Birthday, age 7, November 4th...

On the day you were born
I wore an old sweater
that once belonged to my sister.
And a rain hat hand-me-down
from my grandmother.

I was braiding slippery strands of kelp on the beach
to see if it could be done.
It was overcast and beautiful,
all the colors so vivid and fragile,
with the world in turmoil,
and the smoke from September 11th
still a haze through which we wandered aimlessly.
Grieving.
A handsome buck froze unafraid
standing in the road ten feet away.
We chatted with two seals
who were treading water in the gentle rain.
And after the rain?
After the rain,
we saw a double rainbow over the harbor
portentous and magnificent
so we knew something was happening
somewhere.
But all the signs
were in a foreign language.
And I am painfully illiterate.

And it wasn't until a couple weeks later
when I got the call,
and then the package of pictures of you
at the hospital, with all your vital statistics,
it was then that I knew:
It was you!