From Russia With Love

I see my twenty month old grandson

for the first time at the airport,

hanging upside down from my daughter’s arms,

laughing and making faces through the window

the end of a long journey from Russia (with love).

It’s hard for me to believe that he can giggle

and smile, wiggling his whole body in joy

after being born three months early,

weighing only 3 pounds, spending

first eight months in the hospital

hooked to tubes to keep him alive,

then on to two orphanages,

sleeping on floor covered with babies

only being fed buckwheat,

no bonding to anyone, but now,

he looks as if he has been

with my daughter his entire life.

The first night, I sleep on the couch

holding my baby grandson so

my daughter can sleep after

arduous journey and three weeks

in Russia, followed everywhere

by a chaperone to the orphanage

in Chelybinsk at foot of Ural Mountains,

home of nuclear explosions,

contaminating the land and river.

Baby boy is brought to office

in brand new velvet suit

which he must take off,

when my daughter takes him home,

to use for other children

left at the orphanage forlorn.

First night, I rock and soothe

my beautiful adopted grandson

and he keeps prying open my eyes

to make sure I am still there.

He blows on me to see if I move.

He has never seen a flower,

a blade of grass or a bird

and spends hours just squirting

a hose and watching the water

come out in drips as he tries

to grasp it with his hands,

as if it is all a miracle

and it is, for we all now have

the miracle of our dreams.