Thursday
21 December 2017

— not much before dawn

Good Morning All,

On the 20th of December 1979, in the woods maybe fifty yards down from our cosy little A-frame in Plymouth, New Hampshire, I cut up a fallen yellow birch tree, sawing it into stove lengths. Since it was getting dark by then, and I was a bit tuckered from a day of teaching and then the dragging and sawing, I left it semi-stacked in the ferns. I’d fetch it on the morrow.

Today, thirty-eight years ago, a Friday, at breakfast, I made the mistake of telling Britta not to get any ideas about going to get the wood, not even one log at a time. Her doctor had told her expressly she ought to spend as much time in bed as possible since she was leaking a bit of the amniotic fluid, and she still had six weeks to go.

Telling Britta not to do something, however, was like telling a bear there was a honeycomb up in yonder tree, and he (the bear) better stay away from it.

Not that Holly minded arriving six weeks early, so as to be born in the same decade as her brother and be in time for Christmas. She was so small though, Britta couldn’t get a good enough grip on her to fire her out. It took a while, during which Britta had a few choice words for your humble scribe.

Britta already knew from the amniocentesis test we were awaiting a daughter. I’d asked her not to tell me, and she'd been so careful with pronouns she slipped up only once. Even then, she said he. I pretended not to notice, but I thought to myself, “Well, okay. A son and a daughter would be perfect, but two sons is also fine."

The poem below (which I hope I’ve not sent before!) tells some of this glorious event, the tip of the iceberg of this glorious event, but I’ll add that when I eventually drove home in the wee hours, I stopped at the motel where my folks were taking care of two-year old Johs. I knocked and my dad came to the door in his pyjamas and hair every which way to let me in. Johs sat up in bed, looking groggy. My mother, who’d always wanted a daughter, said, “And?”

“We have,” I said, “a brand new daughter.”

“Yippee!” exclaimed my mom, not normally given to such outbursts, but Yippee! she exclaimed again and clapped the flats of her hands together three times.

My sentiments exactly!

 
O Holly Night
Bheka Pierce
 
Expected on Groundhog’s Day, our daughter,
Not to miss Christmas, set out early across the Great Mystery,
Arriving with the winter Solstice, bringing the light
Back with her to our northern hills.

Before my eyes she nestled at her mother’s breast,
Her forearm no longer than my index finger,
The delicate scallops of her ears yet clinging to her scalp;
My wife never more beautiful, her exhausted eyes exultant.

Later, having held our new daughter thanks
And kissed my wife’s eyes thanks, wool cap on,
As I walked to the car under heaven’s high ebony dome,
As the universe floated in the chill, clear air,

As Polaris twinkled nearly within reach, sang I:
Not bad, you splendid stars and wheeling diamond galaxies,
But you cannot hold a candle to the beauty of the tiny
Cosmos I have this wondrous night beheld.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Holly’s poem in the Day Book is about a letter from Britta.

P.P.S. Two Holly snaps: