Abraham,
On Christmas Eve you threw your first ever party, a smallish affair for your pick-up Portland family. There was pie and tea and fat cans of Hamm's for your Uncle Efrem. You bounced on various laps and at times you looked vaguely alarmed. It did wind you up, so that later you could not sleep; eyes wide and shiny in the dark bedroom. At midnight your Mom danced with you in the glow of the Christmas tree lights. You two have a special orbit, like twin suns at the center of a galaxy. I'm just a planet spinning.
We had breakfast for lunch, enjoying what might be the last lazy Christmas morning for a very long time. Your Mom recalls playing cards with her brothers and sister in the earliest morning, impatient for gift-receiving. I would wake first and plug in the tree. In the kaleidoscope light I would open my stocking: pens and pencils and once, cherries fermented in sweet liquor all packaged in a small glass boot.
We walked in Forest Park. I carried you in the Bjorn and you slept so soundly you snored, No matter how gray the Portland day, Forest Park always glows green with rain-light. I held you near the creek and you slept on the sound of water moving. There are salamanders in this creek, but we did not disturb them on this day. Later you woke and were wide-eyed at the green world going by.
After a nap we opened presents with interruptions for dinner and your bed times. You got clothes and toys and a stuffed termite from your Grandma, who goes in for that kind of thing. You also got a very nicely illustrated reference book on poetic forms.
This of course, from your
Pa-