Three Poems

September 12th, 2013

Obviously I haven’t kept up with this blog, since it has been four years since I last posted. I wrote half a post in the middle, that I just read and wished I’d finished writing, but never did. It may be a decrepit blog, but really big events require poetry, and sometimes poetry wants to be shared, so here I am.

It has been a big few years: Dave and I moved to Seattle, got married, and I finished my dissertation and became Dr. Cristie. But the very biggest event happened in April, with the birth of our first baby. I understand a lot more about parents now, because it’s true that your life immediately changes when that baby enters the world and becomes your world. I also understand more about mothers, because wow, bringing a baby into the world takes an immense amount of effort, however you do it!

So. I birthed a baby (at home). The baby needed a poem. The birth needed a poem. And then the midwives needed a poem. It may have taken me five months to birth these poems into the world, but here they are. To everyone who helped with the experience that made these poems possible: thank you. You’re amazing. I can’t imagine having done it without you.

Zephyr

You are a maker of entrances
arm-raising victories
of waiting and drama and intensity

You are a bundle of warmth
a curled puddle in my arms
limp-limbed and full-bellied

You are forty-one weeks and five days of anticipation
five hours of strength and pain
one moment of determination
one moment of flying

You are my crackle-skinned joy
molting into kissable cheeks
plumping fingers and toes
bright eyes widening at windows

You are milk-faced distractibility
an epic of squirm
with a final chapter of melted satisfaction

You are my challenge
my new meaning
my wonder
my forever-changed.

4/17-4/27, 2013

Zephyr at 1 month and 4.5 months



Sixty Seconds

So much nestles in that moment
filling it to over brim
expanding the walls of temporal possibility

I curl around my belly
clutching my feet as if I can kiss my toes

I have worked so hard
my body’s preparations smoothing the passage
between my bones
until betrayed by my flesh

Can I be too healthy to give birth?
Can I be too strong?

In that moment I strain
wondering if this is possible
until I hear words floating toward me
baby and heartbeat and episiotomy

She says I have to do it now and
I suddenly find the impossible
as if I am more than my body
as if I have been given the strength
of a thousand mothers before me

I pull on my feet
clenching my belly
roaring with strength and pain and desperation

And in that moment
he arrives
with his own roar
his own essence
his own possibilities.

-- 4/30/13

New Zephyr

My Midwives
(to Taylor and Christine, with gratitude and love)

I want to write a poem for my midwives
like I did for my son and my self
I want them to know they are worthy
of my words and creativity
of my occasional attempts at eloquence

I want to write a poem for my midwives
to capture their meaning inside verse
to somehow disentangle my thoughts and memories into words

But how can I possibly describe the primal trust
sourced so deep in my belly that
I remember it even when I have forgotten myself
when my world has condensed into
this motion
this pain
this sound
this pattern
and I can still hear a voice and listen
trusting

How can I explain the space where
I no longer believe I am capable
yet I must believe because they do
and because they believe in me I do
so I find the strength to
move this way
rise that way
bend there
push here
as she tells me and I listen
believing

How can I express the comfort
in knowing they know me
that I will be heard
that my desires
and wishes
and hopes
have been accepted
that I speak and they listen
comforting

I want these words to fit together better
to birth a complicated loving completeness
like I birthed a complicated loving being

I want to honor these women
and their work and their love
that they spread to enchant so many new lives
and somehow
I want them to know
deep down in their bellies
how special my memories are
because they are here.

5/23/13

Midwives Extraordinaire