I wrote this poem, "Baptismal Dress," for my daughter before her baptism in 1999. I'm offering it on Mother's Day as an expression of gratitude for my own wonderful mother and grandmother.

"Not this,"
My mother says
When we discover
Stains--
Rust or blood--
And small holes--
A spluttering match, perhaps--
In the little dress
The color of piano keys
My mother's grandmother wore

Because we fear life's
Short breadth
And the grief that grinds
Our souls
Into the dust of our beginning
Even very early in life
Somehow

We don't notice the flaws
Until we put the dress on my daughter
With eyes the color of the hills
And she giggles,
Kicks up her legs,
And flutters the creased cotton folds
That we had pulled
From a dresser drawer
After 112 years--
Six generations of family--

To find it almost as good as new
Despite the dust and dirt and damage.
The dress settles
Over my daughter's knees
And I think,

How fragile, how short, is life
That this dress made
Of joined scraps of cotton
Could survive so many of us,
Even stuffed in a drawer?

My daughter's giggle
Holds the answer:
Let life fly past.
I will catch hold of it
Like the folds of my dress:
Today we are alive
And so are the hills
And all the secret strength of the world
Is here in our gaze.