There Was Nothing Wrong

a poem

Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

There Was Nothing Wrong

for Richard

You were so quiet
when they first put you on my chest;
a sleeping pill bug, tightly curled. 

There was nothing wrong
but the nurses kept pestering you to cry, 
stealing you away to test your lung function. 

You were unbothered 
by their expectations, and continued 
your slow, steady entrance into newborn life. 

After everyone went to sleep,
I stayed awake, noting your perfections;
watching your lungs relax and swell like autumn.

You remind me of a tree
I once sat under outside Oxfordshire, England;
a willow that did not weep so much as it rested. 

I exhale, just looking at you,
noting the hint of a smile you wear at all times, as if
both amused and sympathetic to the Anxiety of our Age. 

I foresee the meadows of your calm
spreading like prairie grass throughout our family, 
softening and swaying, perhaps, even the grimace of a generation.