A Single Layer

It must have been a decade ago, or nearly, that I wrote this poem for a friend. It was coded verse in her voice to someone else, and today its strange metaphor was born in the most literal sense of labor and breath. So I'm posting it here today. Welcome to the world, Everett. We have waited for you long. "An Incarnation" Certain as stars am I that this embryo will grow as though filled with the patient spirit that met Mary so intimately  upon her humble Yes. Certain as stars, though stars die, setting hope on long life— all the millions of years  between their first burning and our sight— I will wait. It is not enough that he grow in me a child sleeping silent— He must grow in you also between the sheets of your heart like pages in a story book. This is the Law of Waiting and I hold to its words like a child to its mother—I would be a mother, but am barren and weeping at the temple doors, making vows to my patient