FOUR MONTH FIORELLA: AN ODE

she is four months old today, our fiorella primrose. how has time come to work so swiftly through our days, like a flood gate that has been unlocked, where water rushes through, unable to be stopped, contained, even managed. it moves through us, we are but a wake in its hold.

our beautiful girl is not of this earth, we are all convinced. her glow is palpable. her eyes glaze into another solar system entirely every time she smiles. and oh my, does she smile. maybe three hundred times a day. or more. but who's counting? i'm much too busy being on the other side of her. much too busy taking her in, living alongside her life, breathing alongside her ocean.

i introduced her to our daffodils yesterday as they sprang up through the center of the earth over the weekend. "this one is peach," i say. "and this one, a jonquil."

often, i tell steve that "i know she really, truly loves me." because i can feel her love balancing between her heart and mine, as though you were standing next to a roaring winter fire with bare skin. i can feel it in my lungs. i can fill it on my face.

her smile is crooked and her hair is growing. she curls her toes, each one touching its counterpart, and sometimes she grabs them when she's unaware. she sleeps everytime she nurses, and pulls off only to smile back. she has a dimple inside each cheek and one on the side of her left eye. she sings the song of her people and laughs silently and somehow i can hear it.

all this time of waiting was only meant to lead us to her. she is small and soft, "like a bird," my father says.

she is a bird. a flower. an angel. whatever we call her, she is still only ever, her.

a primrose. the start of a dream.