TORONTO
From the painting by Gari Melchers.
THE CARESS
THE BEGINNING
“Where did I come from, where did you pick me up?” the baby asked its mother.
She answered, half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast:
“You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.
“You were in the dolls of my childhood’s games: and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then.
“You were enshrined with our household deity, in his worship I worshiped you.
“In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived.