swift as a hummingbird's wings. Having
traced your dance since girlhood, Pia Mater,
I watch you curl down now inside yourself

graceful and self-contained as any chambered
nautilus protecting a world within: red seed,
persimmon, cinnamon fox that nestles in

your body's soil while you sleep dreaming
of bones that grow inside your skeleton. I
raise my glass in dim light remembering

Dr. Selzer's line that wine is rich in mud
and blood and only bone endures. I offer, then,
this prayer for generations: May whatever

bones take form from your bones walk in joy.
And when they take their rest a hundred years
from now, may it be with your bones, Pia

Mater, and with mine that we may nourish good
grapes for another family's celebration of
birth as . . . [Full Text of this Article]