To Angus On His 13th Birthday

THERE WAS A COMET the night before you were born.
I’ll never forget that.

It was dark and it was cool but the song of spring was riffling through the breeze, whispering, promising. It was the first day of April, just after Easter, just after midnight, and the stars and Comet Hale-Bopp lit up the country-dark sky with stars like exploding fireworks.

As we drove to the hospital I looked up into the night and burned the memory of that brilliant sky onto my organic hard drive, relentlessly wired in that moment to deliver my first child into a shower of white lights, black sweetness and straight fear.

How perfect was that night.

How exquisite is that child.

Now poised on the precipice of a new journey, I worry not because he is walking under a canopy of heaven, my son, with stardust at his anointed feet.