At the Cabin
   Waiting for my Daughter’s First Birth
 by Kate Kingston

A web of trees, this Wisconsin sky,
and me,
down here, lying in the cold sand,
staring up through black arms
wishing for anything with color,
maybe a male bird
with a streak of red under its wing
or a moss rose pulsing
its tough bud into blossom.
This grey
is appropriate for the mood of waiting,
for the distillation of anxiety.
It puts angst to sleep, wears the dampness
of leftover rain.
Even the longhand of my pen slants
downward as if these words
were a newborn
slipping from the womb into light.