Happy Mother's Day, my dear friend-who-is-a-Grace --

Sounds to me like all your feelings are totally natural and normal. And your ability to not act on them is very wise. XOXO

A poem for you today --

Eating the Avocado

By Carrie Fountain

Now I know that I’ve never described anything, not one single thing, not
the flesh of the avocado which darkens so quickly, though if you scrape

what’s been exposed to the air it’s new-green beneath like nothing ever happened.
I want to describe this evening, though
it’s not spectacular. The baby babbling

in the other room over the din
and whistle of a football game, and now
the dog just outside the door, scratching, rattling the tags on her collar, the car
going by, far away but loud, a car without
a muffler, and the sound of the baby
returning again, pleasure and weight.
I want to describe the baby. I want to describe the baby for many hours to anyone
who wishes to hear me. My feelings for her take me so far inside myself I can see the pure holiness in motherhood, and it makes me
burn with success and fear, the hole her coming has left open, widening. Last night
we fed her some of the avocado I’ve just finished eating while writing this poem.
Her first food. I thought my heart might burst, knowing she would no longer be made
entirely of me, flesh of my flesh. Startled
in her amusing way by the idea of eating,
she tried to take it in, but her mouth
pushed it out. And my heart did burst.

I believe I will see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord with courage.
Be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.