A Welcome

Hello Leander, tucked into cloth, tiny lion
who yawns through the virus and tear gas.
You are a new scent of heat.
Before any scar grazes your legs
I would show you the rows of bicycles
in burned colors, and whistles and cardinals
who pin the cold snow. You hold a small
share of what it means to be here.
When the air shatters around you,
gold and marine, please know you belong.
You are half sky, half butterfly net, alive
to friends and strangers, fast to net
and trust. There is nothing
that is not worth much. Arrayed
in overalls and tackle-box, you should grow
to see the deep green rains, the roads
brushing the clouds. To compass
all you have done from a porch in late life
and listen to the bees who, woolen
and undeterred, have returned. I hope
you stay warm inside the white dusk of
morning. No one stays unscathed
but you have days of summer to grow
into your thoughts and learn the great
caring tasks. You have yards of treelight
to race through under the birds’ low song-
swept radiances. The trills you hear
are glass grace. They are singing.

Copyright © 2024 by Joanna Klink. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 8, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“My friend’s baby was due in the early summer of 2020. I was worried. COVID-19 was early in its trajectory but still killing tens of thousands of people around the world, there were no vaccines, and any hospital stay carried some risk. This baby was being born to two moms in a climate of rising anti–LGBTQ+ hate, and at a time when the murder of Black people by the police weighed heavily on the nation’s conscience and raised questions about young people’s future in America, just as it continues to. I wanted to compose a prayer for him to live a long life. I wrote this poem right after I heard that Caroline and the baby were safe——to welcome the baby.”
—Joanna Klink