My daughter’s baby naming is coming up soon. Her first name, loosely translated, means “speech,” “speaker,” or “statement.” Her middle name means “life.” I would like to read a poem – of high literary quality – that in a beautiful way expresses the meanings of her name. I am having trouble finding something suitable. I am not looking for any cheezy, generic “poems for baby.” To give you a sense of my taste, this is the closest I have found:

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Morning Song
by Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

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However, something is not quite right about it. Other favorite poets of mine include Mary Oliver, Michael Ondaatje, Robert Hass, Billy Collins, though I am open to any others as well. Any suggestions? What poem would you offer as a blessing for your daughter?

Topics: writing, babies, poetry, reading, family, ceremony, names, prayer, mother, daughter, blessings