A Bowl of Warm Air

Someone is falling towards you
as an apple falls from a branch,
moving slowly, imperceptibly as if
into a new political epoch,
or excitedly like a dog towards a bone.
He is holding in both hands
everything he knows he has—
a bowl of warm air.

He has sighted you from afar
as if you were a dramatic crooked tree
on the horizon and he has seen you close up
like the underside of a mushroom.
but he cannot open you like a newspaper
or put you down like a newspaper.

And you are satisfied that he is veering towards you
and that he is adjusting his speed
and that the sun and the wind and rain are in front of him
and the sun and the wind and rain are behind him.

–Moniza Alvi

I read this poem yesterday while sitting in a waiting room next to Ben, who was reading the third book in the Fablehaven series. It was the poem for February 2nd in one of my daily poetry anthologies.

I flipped through the book picking out a poem here and there. It can be hard to concentrate in waiting rooms. Then I got to this poem.

Reading it was like receiving a small premonition of the future.

A few minutes later we were ushered in to the ultrasound room by the technician where it was pronounced that who we were expecting was a perfect baby boy. Someone falling towards me. I am holding out my arms to catch him as the warm season filters in, the beginning of Summer, a bowl of warm air.