There's more to this than rosy baby pictures--

The pain, the sorrow,
of you--
the terror of a commitment
deeper than to mate
or bosom friend,
the being I shaped
from my own clay,
from the first love
I ever set loose
upon the world.

The future is the basket
in which we put
all our eggs.
Oh, child!
Mother love
is anguish.

Fear hovers on
black wings.
Fear of monsters
in human form,
fear of blind accident,
of disease, of the lurking
lethal genetic kink,
fear of the certain violence
of this world
where Chaos decides.
Fear of wrong choices,
of bad company!
To raise a child
through
so much peril!

Then, at last,
to see you grown,
to love you
so very, very much--
& to let
you
go.