The Naming

by Jody Bolz

Here is your first gift
(this blessing, this echo):
sound you’ll answer to
turning, always, to see who spoke.

Here is your name,
which people we don’t know
will call you years from now,
when your infant face

with its astonished look
is just a picture
and our huge, parental love
a blur of hands.

This poem first appeared in Jewish Currents (June 1989) and was reprinted with Jody Bolz’s permission in Faye Moskowitz, Her Face in the Mirror: Jewish Women on Mothers and Daughters.

Posted in Covenant & Naming Rituals
naming

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