A Beautiful Day

I will tell you it as I remember it:
We took you from the hospital door,
Swaddled in a baby carrier lined with denim,
It was warm, for March,
As we placed you in the back seat of my brother's grey Honda Civic,
Manual transmission, 1988.
There was a CD in the stereo,
And when I turned the key,
Grey smoke spurting from the tailpipe,
A song began to play:

The heart is a bloom
Shoots up through the stony ground . . .

What more do I remember?
Your smallness.
Your newness.
My inadequacy.

You are not as small now,
Nor as new
(But not as old as you think, nor me).

I wish you could feel
My sorrow:
You might accept
My love.

We had painted for you a blue crib
With white clouds.
There were spiders in the farmhouse,
And I am sorry I did not know how to be a father to a baby girl,
A day old, or 17.

I tried as only I knew
On that day, and this.