This week is my oldest daughter’s 20th birthday. She has been an incredible blessing in our lives and her intrepid spirit and unabashed curiosity and passion has only grown through the years. Back in 2006 we took a trip to visit family in Pismo Beach, California and spent a week playing on the beach. During that trip I wrote what would become my first published poem. I have since published many other poems in various journals and literary magazines, but this one holds a special place in my heart. This poem is a captures my daughter’s spirit and her approach to life, and it only seemed appropriate to share it here as she begins her second decade this week.

The Morning of the First Resurrection*

My five-year-old daughter dug up a dead bird

Behind my back

While looking for a flag for our castle

Among the desiccating

Piles of kelp washed ashore from last night’s storm.

 

From the corner of my eye I saw her standing

Holding the stringy

Waterlogged cormorant by its long-hooked beak;

Face turned upwards

At an unnatural angle towards the sea and sky

 

She stood looking intently into the inky black

Feathers and face

Wondering how this diving bird had ended up

under nine inches

Of freshly deposited sand and kelp.

 

She held it there for a moment longer than I expected

Then gently laid

The limp bird down, slowly lowering the fragile head

Cradling the snake

Like neck with atypical care.

 

She grabbed her plastic pink sand shovel

And began to dig

A proper resting place for her deceased discovery

And laid it in

The thoughtfully excavated, shallow grave.

 

Sand and seashells piled on top to create

An impromptu monument to a simple seabird.

 

Later that evening we walked home

Worn down by the wind and cold spring sea.

Her small hand in mine she asked if we could return

To the beach

Tomorrow.

 

I asked why?

And in the simple language of a child

She said she wanted to see

if her bird would come alive again

In the morning.

 

With my faith in a child

Just so

We will return again to see the sandy grave

and

What change has been wrought through her bird

Twice buried. 

Pismo Beach, California

Spring 2006

 * First published in the Bathyspheric Review, Spring 2008.