Te Hau

Every day you change
your eyes now slate not
magnetite black
or dark as the infinite sky.
You are coming into your body
into this world
sharpening and shrinking
like light through a lens
a star coming into focus.

I cried when you were born
your body indescribably soft in my hands
as soft as the womb you were born from
"Once the head's out"
she says
"the feeling of the body sliding
down the birth canal
is amazing"

I'll never know but
I cried
because of the intensity
because of her courage
because you had come.