1.
We all arrive as aliens, smeared 
in our astronaut suits of vernix, trailing
our umbilicus to the old world,
gravitationally pulled to the great
magma heart of our mother. 

Like every mother newly-delivered
earth welcomes the newborn to the
whole of her, heir to all her green 
comforts, her silver waters, her nimbus
of air.		Yet what brute sibling 
forces are already deciding 

what to permit, what to 
deny, naming tribe, naming 
stranger, delineating
no

2.
Not everyone will love you, Xavier, 
grandson newly come, the blood
in your veins already ahum 
with your ancestors’ songs of exile
and hope: Greta (the great-grandmother 
whose birthdate you share) Kindertransported
to London,. . . her cousin Annelise Frank 
not so fortunate;  Nora of Connaught,  
economic refugee ; James Patrick of Tyrone, 
political refugee ; Herbert  slipping Merzig 
to Luxembourg to Le Harve to New York 
just ahead of the Nazis, these matrices 
of disconnection mere metonymy 
of the suffering humans bring 
upon one another, yes, you are born 
into risk, as we all must be but born
as well into this web we create, mesh 
of connection, buoyed by the many                                                                
who already do cherish you.

Grandson, inhale home with each bellow 
of your new lungs, cry forth the sweet wail
of your own indigenous freedom song
first bell-clear note in becoming everything
your mother hopes for from you.