Caley Ellenburg

I shot this newborn session (have found a Covid-safe rhythm to protect all of us at shoot!) a few weeks a go and the way Ashley and Patrick looked at Freddie made me think of this poem I read a few years ago. It’s always seemed too sad to share with a happy newborn photo, but the heartbrokenness of the world surely can’t be a shock these days and I can’t stop thinking of it. I’m not a mom, but I see the hope that children bring — that we might teach them our failures, show them to fight for change and give them the tools they need to make this world better than we did. 🖤

GOOD BONES by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real sh****le, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

Still one of my favorite shoots! We done good, . And now I want Sour Patch Kids.