I saw my grandchild
move in deep silence
as it stretched below
my daughter’s heart.

I contemplate this child
whose history is ahead of mine…
whose influence has arrived
and helps me see… again.

This child,
the incarnation
of love from two,
from four,
from eight
pulls us close to what we know
but cannot see.

And having stretched
it waits
a holy waiting
to see the mystery
it has heard.

So we wait with this child,
we wait as the last robins fly
and as the wind plants gold,
we wait to see God breathe,
the mystery and to hear.

It was autumn and I had been sitting outside by the lake and the yellow birch leaves  would fall every time a breeze came through. We traveled to be with my daughter about six weeks before she was due to deliver her first baby, and I watched the magic of the baby stretch and of my daughter becoming a mother – both holy things.