Poetry #347

PAPOOSE

You came to me in such a way I thought I might never recover.

           And perhaps in some ways I never have…

When I was small I told the world I would never birth a child

     It frightened me…

 But people change… perspectives change… I changed

Gestational days dragged …

Was it anticipations presence at the thought of our virgin introduction...

            Or my discomfort which flourished as you did?

I’ve never been good with pain!

And yet It began!

A blur of aching, of opiates, of scrub caps and steel…

And with the touch of that Masters hand my world was shattered

Between time and space and your newborn cry

I wept as you rose out of my broken body’s ashes

And there you were…

You, my bequeathed                                                                                                 

And, I, your receptacle, the carrier which had held you bound.

So tight within my flesh you’d grow…

I have the marks to prove …

 This love of my love… 

                              this blood of my blood… 

                                                            this fear of my undeserving nature!

Wrenched from my belly but never my heart -

                                     The place you grew in and grew under!

Unknowing it was possible to love eternal in an instant

People change… perspectives change… but you changed me!

This is the first poem I've attempted to write in a very long time. Some days I read it and I think it is just right, and other days I think it needs work. 

Interestingly, I feel the same way about my mothering.

{sketch by Andrea Annunziata}