Father's everywhere

For a New Father 
 

As the shimmer of dawn transforms the night

Into a blush of color futured with delight,

The eyes of your new child awaken in you

A brightness that surprises your life.


Since the first stir of its secret becoming,

The echo of your child has lived inside you,

Strengthening through all its night of forming

Into a sure pulse of fostering music.


How quietly and gently that embryo-echo

Can womb in the bone of a man

And foster across the distance to the mother

A shadow-shelter around this fragile voyage.


Now as you behold your infant, you know

That this child has come from you and to you;

You feel the full force of a father's desire

To protect and shelter.
 

Perhaps for the first time,

There awakens in you

A sense of your own mortality.
 

May your heart rest in the grace of the gift

And you sense how you have been called

Inside the dream of this new destiny.
 

May you be gentle and loving,

Clear and sure.
 

May you trust in the unseen providence

That has chosen yo all to be a family.
 

May you stand sure on our ground

And know that every grace you need

Will unfold before you

Like all the mornings of your life.
 

- John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us:

A Book of Blessings