For my Gemma Rose. Happy 6 month birthday. I love you Little Dove.

A bundle and a hat
A swollen eye
Faces side by side
“Hello Gemma”
And then…
A sideways glance
Out of the one open eye
A moment of recognition
At the sound of my voice
You know your momma.
Now locked in
You found me.

IV’s Hinder movement
But not love
As I cradle you in the NICU
“Hey, baby”
I speak again
To the now naked bundle and hat.
Your eyes begin their wander
In search of the voice you know
Try to focus
Cross instead
“You looking for your momma?”
I giggle.
At last your gray eyes find their place
Holding my gaze
Arm and hand tucked under your chin.
“I’m here. You found me. I’m your momma.”

I pull you back from my chest
Now in our bed at home.
I want to look at you
And you at me.
I smooch your little neck
Looking at you again
Seeing your eyes light up
“You like those smooches, huh?”
I smooch you again.
Yes, your eyes, looking at me
Tell me with their sparkle
You do, indeed, like that.

I knew then
Your love more clearly
I knew more
My delight in you.

I place my cheek against yours
Thinking, not because I will say goodbye,
For I had just brought you home,
Only just to commit to memory
What your little cheek feels like against my own.
Because one day you’ll be bigger
I think
I want to remember what it felt like to love and know you
At the beginning
So I can look back at you.

Just like you
My eyes still look for you
My beautiful treasure.
In memory, in beauty
In goodness, in dreams.
I will always look for you.

And one day when
the Heavenly City’s gates are thrown open
and it’s people pour through
I will look for you then
With delight in our eyes
We will find one another
And I will remember and recognize
The Little Girl with a sparkle in her eyes

That one there
She’s my daughter.

Yes, when those gates are thrown open
I will look for you
I will find you with my eyes
The way yours first found me
Then with our arms.
I will say again
“I’m here. You found me. I’m your momma.”

El Roi – The One who sees
When His feet carried Him
To His own Death
His eyes looked too
To His Father they lifted
Not in recognition but painful wonder
“Why have you forsaken, me?”
I wonder if it was Him or me I read in those words.
But He was not a passive participant.
He held Himself there
His shame to be His coronation
“King of the Jews”
Passers by read as they look with their eyes
Not knowing He was
King of Creation
Whose eyes we cannot escape
to the ends of the sea- they see
in the grave of Sheol – His eyes see
For darkness is not dark to Him.
They behold me here
On this beach
Listening to the roar of many waters.
They behold her there
Listening to the One
Whose voice is like
The Roar of Many Waters.

His eyes in the past
Beheld the pain of our present
and for the joy He saw set before Him in the future,
For a moment He saw no longer
Eyes closed in Death.

That joy, I wonder,
What was it?
As my eyes frantically search
For that bundle and hat
I am convinced
A mother’s reunion with her child
Filled His joyful vision.

So after my eyes and arms find you, my love.
Behind you they will see eyes of even greater Love.
Set on me
Set on you
Set on us both.
A tenderness
Filled with joy
Because He sees
What He closed His eyes in death to gift
Become reality.

Restoration
Redemption
Reunification
Healing
Wholeness
Love
They belong to Him
and His merciful, compassionate eyes.
The eyes that wept at our separation
From each other
and from Him
From the beginning.
They will be alight
Because He’s made
All Things New.

To You Alone, O Lord, be the glory and power and dominion. Forever and Ever. Amen.