As a fan's notes for grace, a quavery chant against the dark, I sing a song of things that make us grin and bow, that just for an instant let us see sometimes the web and weave of merciful, the endless possible, the incomprehensible inexhaustible inexplicable yes…”

— Brian Doyle

Greetings and a happy month of March. Once again, I apologize for the absence. Life, man.

It is my perfect pleasure to tell you that Will has a beautiful Baby Brother.

Please welcome Wendell Henry Cole to “the enormous mural of the world.”

Quite thankfully, Mother and Baby are once again simply lovely.

Like when Will was born, I’ve got Patrick Kavanagh’s “Birth” poetically bolstering my worldview:

When out of the holy mouth came angelic grace
And the will that had fought had found new merit
And all sorts of beautiful things appeared in that place.

Today, I’m thinking also of Richard Wilbur’s poem “Sir David Brewster’s Toy” and of all the math that we’ll never be able to do and wouldn’t want to if we could:

In this tube you see
At the far end a strew of
Colored-glass debris—

Which, however, grows
Upon reflection to an
Intricate pied rose,

Flushed with sun, that might,
Set in some cathedral's wall,
Paraphrase the light.

Now, at the least shake,
The many colors jumble
And abruptly make

The rose rearrange,
Adding to form and splendor
The release of change.

Rattle it afresh
And see its coruscating
Flinders quickly mesh,

Fashioning once more
A fine sixfold gaudiness
Never seen before.

Many prophets claim
That Heaven's joys, though endless,
Are not twice the same;

This kaleidoscope
Can, in that connection, give
Exercise in hope.