Daughter #10: Everything, and One Thing

Daughter #10: Everything, and One Thing

My daughter, you are born today with nothing

It's up to me to arm you for the fray

You must be decked with words, and thoughts, and something

Something that will keep the pain away

I'll name you with a string of names that's endless

For light, and dance, and strength, and love, and nerve

For women who'll surround you when you're friendless.

Then I can send you off without reserve.

I'll drive you to the edge of what I know

And drop you off to brave the world at last

But on that day, I think, before you go

I'll watch you turn to me, your fading past

You'll lean in close, so only I can hear

And whisper your own name into my ear.

Dolores my baby girl (Daughter #9)

Dolores my baby girl, if I cradle you warm will it melt the ice?

Ice is better than sorrows your great-grandmother must have believed.

Believed like she knew that her little girl should be thin and bright

Bright radiance, reflections, sunshine melt ice too

Too much cradling warps the future before it can start

Start running now, baby bunting, start running now

Now before I can catch you and name you sorrows, Dolores.

***

Dolores a baby girl I found wrapped in confetti

Confetti that says the parade has gone noisily by

By tomorrow this child will be mine to console and treasure

Treasure's what's left when the pirates have whooped their last

Last will be first and sorrows will melt to rivers

Rivers to drown the sorrows, but not the child.

Child, child, my future, I name you sorrows, Dolores. 

Daughter # 8: Harriet

Daughter # 8: Harriet

My days have brushed steel highlights in my hair

These babies I am birthing are my last

My cronehood beckons. Yes, these babes are rare.

Their youth draws near. I have to teach them fast.

Here's Harriet, hearth keeper, my right hand

Who scrubs and cleans, who cooks and mends, who sweeps

And sings, as though her life were all unplanned

And we weren't desperate for the hearth she keeps.

My Harriet, my girl who plots to be

My child of dust, of mud and soot and clay,

I mean to teach her, but she teaches me

She keeps me grounded when I drift or stray.

I've named her and I've taught her all I know

She's here to stay. That means now I can go.

Daughter #7: Sunday

Daughter #7: Sunday

Baby, you are Sunday for the mornings in our living room

breakfasting in slips so our dresses would stay clean

Sunday for the family walk, wading through the sand drifts, me

dragging down on Mommy's hand while Ruthy strode ahead

Sunday for the days in church, hours washed in whispers

letting prayers and homilies roll across our rows

Girl, I name you Sunday for the sunshine

Child, I call you Sunday for yourself

Baby child, I call you this to anchor you in family

Sunday for your missionary grandparents

Sunday for a day that starts in song

Sunday for my baby who is good

Sunday for so much that will just flow over you

Sunday for the Sundays of my childhood,

Sunwashed, sunsplashed, ironed and slow.

Marie. I name her. Daughter #6

Daughter Ghazal: Marie. I name her.

My daughter is here and everything else can wait. I name her.

I rock her I nurse her I claim her and though it is late, I name her.

Old men will sing her old songs on the stairs like they did for me

With the words just a little off and a limping gait, while I name her.

My mini-me, my little Marie, my child of a hundred hand-me-downs

She holds her breath while I unseal her fate: I name her.

The beginning becomes the end and the rubber band slips

She claps for the trees and the grass while they susurrate. I name her.

This baby of butter and bitterness rolls off my tongue

I catch her and all of her ancestresses elate. I name her.

I am Marie. She is Marie. We are Marie. We throw thunderbolts

The heaviest things have no weight. I name her.

Daughter #5 - Fail

Fail.                Now—
there’s a beautiful name for a girl.

from “The Dutiful Sister Ever Failing” by Kirsten Kaschock

*********

Well, I asked the Oracle and the Oracle answered back. Did the Oracle know I was naming my daughters, one by one? Did the Oracle guess?*

Fail. My beautiful Fail. You will never worry about expectations, you will never feel you are falling short. Fail, my tiny Fail, I see you even when you are hiding, I know where you are, and I predict this for you: your taller, louder, more aggressive sisters will clamor and succeed and they will suffer for it, they will be targets and deal with potshots and everyone will be gunning for them. You will be heads and shoulders tinier, off in a corner, and you will be wildly succeeding. Quietly. Unexpectedly.

Fail is a
name for a beautiful girl
for a star.

Fail you can

go now. I've named you

you'll go far.

*The Bibliomancy Oracle, http://bibliomancyoracle.tumblr.com/askoracle