This is the first poem in my book Border Crossings.
It's called "The Light."
It's dedicated to my brother, Kevin Woodman.
"Before the first light touched the river, the rosebush pressed
against the window, was the silhouette
of a man in rags looking in between night and morning.
It was morning.
And this-- a way of saying, 'Look, child, the world
is more than you suppose.
Get up, get out there, get down to the river.
And take this little bit of night with you,
so you may better understand what's coming.
Be there when it first shines on the water on the black noses
of the deer as they bow to drink,
on the smooth skin of the frog whose voice is
so much bigger than its body.
Watch for the steelhead working purposefully toward the high
pools and notice at the edge of the gills the sickles of shine,
all those moons fallen into the sea, coming back,
and the tracks the raccoons left, filling now with light.'
It was the day before you were born.
I got up and left the house in a hurry.
My dreams unresolved, my shoes untied.
We called the house La Casa Contenta.
The road, gravel.
The pines, ponderosa.
The dog, Rodrigo.
And you-- you didn't yet have a name.
Even your anatomy was a secret as you
kicked in the wilderness of a woman's belly,
sensing as you must have the change that was coming.
I was eight years old, mother was almost 40,
and you were late.
But you were strong and healthy from the start.
When she brought you home and handed you to me,
I held you, my brother, carefully
wrapped in a cotton blanket, your eyes shut tight,
your fingers sifting the air, and your silky hair, that patch
of black you brought with you into the world,
so black and shining with the light we live by."