Portrait of twice newly new

In the birth of a flower, a feeling, a movement, a life, there is so much wide-awake wonder.  The recent arrival of my new niece and nephew has me turning to e.e. cummings to find a way of putting words to the celebration of it.  I find him using Spring as a metaphor, in phrases like ‘in Just-spring’ and ‘Spring is in the world’ and ‘spring like a Hand in a window carefully moving New and Old.’   Trying to capture that just-born moment when the whole world changes.

And now I am here, myself trying to capture the shifting between old and new in this portrait of twice newly new.  Trying to comprehend the infinite perfection of two tiny, brand new lives newly arrived. 

I haven’t seen the babies yet.  Just poured over pictures sent across the channels of the internet.  I can’t wait to see and hold them, which means taking a trip to Idaho as soon as they are home from the hospital and can endure my little crew of crazies crashing down upon them with all their enthusiasm and affection.

As I’ve looked at the photos – the tiny hands, the perfect feet, I’m made painfully aware of how precious life is, in all its fragility, its sweetness, its smallness, and its strength.  And I think, maybe, that when I see a newborn baby – as newly new as Spring blowing through the tender branches of our magnolia, pulling the buds open as it passes – that I am seeing life broken down in infinitesimal portions.  That inside I am feeling how new and precious and fragile and small and full each moment of every day is.  So much is taken, so much is given, so much is offered, and I see it in the tiny fingers and toes and my heart is wrenched open and the newness I see is raw all around me and I am in awe and I ache.  That is the wide-awake wonder.  That is the celebration.  That is the newly, newly new.