Evensong

Back when I found I was having a girl, I thought I knew what I was getting into but I have been dumbstruck lately with the singing. Geoff relieved me of the bedtime ritual and I laid on our bed near the open windows to read my book. I was really into my reading when on the baby monitor I hear Clara singing to herself in bed. At first, I thought, "How nice. That's really sweet." Then it occurred to me that I could not make out what she was saying. And then it occurred to me that she won't always do this. So I put the book down. The melody sounded like a hybrid between "Siyahamba" and the Kinks. But those lyrics, I could not hear what she was saying. Between the cicadas so loud at that hour and my own distracted thoughts, I couldn't hear her. I tiptoed up the steps stood outside her room. What I heard was something like,

"I don't know how to love you. You're a baby now.
You can go to my house again."

May she always express herself so surely and for no one but herself. It was so worth it to me, a pearl of enormous importance. Against the evening sounds, I stood there straining so hard to hear.