Poem from The Generosity of Birds

Home is heaven having a bath

Black cockatoos trembled the forest with their cries
this morning just before the storm. Now rain
pummels my iron roof, lashes the windows
and I glory in full water tanks
and the first hot bath of wet season.
As my toes hover over steamy water,
I always hear your childhood squeals of delight,
splash of your tugboat, your spontaneous song:
Home is heaven having a bath.
Bending my knees, I sink
into the soup of myself. Suds lap my chin.
The dulcet tones of cello on the radio, mellow
and deep, like your voice is now.
I’m remembering my young mother body,
bony with worry and you, too slippery
for my grasp.

My long-lost journals finally arrived,
five decades of scrawl only I can read.
I soak in how I’ve changed, how
I’ve stayed the same, naked
amid the lulling waves of my own voice
on the page. And I want to say forgive me,
my pounding doubts. It seems my terror
of losing you began long before you were born—
with blood-soaked sheets as the baby before you
seeped away. This is the stain that blinds me
to your perfect wholeness. Sometimes, my love is an ocean
that wants to swallow you back. Now I see the gulf
we’ve built between us protects you
from my sweeping tides.