Tuesday Poem: "For Thomas on his First Birthday"

Thomas, it’s part of life’s strange design

that these fresh days

of your green bud years

will be lost to your conscious memory.

You enjoy each laugh, each bath, each hug, each kiss,

each new discovery of taste or touch

and then it evaporates into past tense.

Amidst the daily demands of the ordinary,

your mother and I

try to cage that steam.

For two weeks prior to your birthday,

we drive around Canterbury, Otago and Southland

connecting the dots of your mother’s heritage.

The sky is big down here, Thomas,

and the stars burn with diamond clarity

in its grape-dark canvas.