Life
floats nine months,
then makes its way
crushed for thirty long hours,
squeezed from under the heart of things
past the blood red fire, riding the drumbeat
of love into shining
light.
.
.
(For Saige, Martina, & Jared)
poem- Jenny August 17, 2015
For Jenny’s mom
.
Jenny,
You are compressed in tender warmth:
moist heat, red tinted scintillance, the beat-beat
beat-beat
beat-beat
of her throbbing love for you.
Silver knife, slice of light;
you are enveloped by gentle hands
that ease you into a gleaming land.
In the mirror your mother’s face beams at
the astonishment in your rounded lips and wide eyes,
as life brings you its first surprise.
Oh!
Jenny,
You are still rooted to
the mysteries of the universe,
branched from blood rich interior monologues,
God’s voice echoing truths,
but this world waits for you.
Your amazed expression reveals your first awestruck impression.
May each day be a glorious gift, for from your birth
your heart was kissed with wonder.
quote- babies: possibilities and reality March 16, 2014
My daughter was born on Good Friday, and Easter Sunday found me in the hospital chapel. The pastor was speaking about change. I sat in the back and bawled. I didn’t know exactly why I was crying, but I was overwhelmed with post-partum hormones and the realization that my life would never be the same. This conversation between characters Claire and Jenny reminded me of that time in my life.
“I’ve thought that perhaps that’s why women are so often sad, once the child’s born,” she said meditatively, as though thinking aloud. “Ye think of them while ye talk and you have a knowledge of them as they are inside ye, the way you think they are. And then they’re born, and they’re different—not the way ye thought of them inside at all. And ye love them, o’ course, and get to know them the way they are.. but still, there’s the thought of the child ye once talked to in your heart, and that child is gone. So I think it’s the grievin’ for the child unborn that ye feel, even as ye hold the born one in your arms.” She dipped her bead and kissed her daughter’s downy skull.
“Yes,” I said. “Before…it’s all possibility. It might be a son, or a daughter. A plain child, a bonny one. And then it’s born, and all the things it might have been are gone, because now it is.”
…”And a daughter is born, and the son that she might have been is dead,” she said quietly. “And the bonny lad at your breast has killed the wee lassie ye thought ye carried. And ye weep for what you didn’t know, that’s gone for good, until you know the child you have, and then at last it’s as thought they could never have been other than they are , and ye feel naught but joy in them. But ‘til then, ye weep easy.”
(Diana Gabaldon in Dragonfly in Amber p. 549)
poem- blood February 5, 2014
She smells the metallic tang
iron
copper
inhales the essence
life
death
dreams the future
rock
paper
scissors
blood.
.
quote- Cassandra Clare on change October 30, 2013
“Sometimes,” Jem said, “our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It’s those time, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered–that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can’t imagine, or even really remember, how things were before.” (Clockwork Angel, p. 308)
I remember sitting in the hospital chapel on Easter Sunday just after the birth of my daughter. I sat there, with tears streaming down my face, just absorbing all the change. My life would never be the same again. It wasn’t. I left the hospital and embarked upon a completely different adventure.
What time in your life were you suddenly engulfed and overwhelmed by change?
the truth about motherhood April 14, 2012
At the moment, I’m thinking about The Cat Years…
.
Giving birth
to all the dreams
of a future,
a blessing
longed for,
imagined
named
years—
decades—
before.
Happiness
held tightly
and blinking brown eyes
sleepily from a blanket
tightly wrapped into
a cocoon of possibility.
.
Walking away,
snarling and critical,
bored and irritated,
cynical.
Mocking talents,
unappreciative of
sacrifices made,
opportunities given.
.
Kindnesses
rebuffed,
communication
ignored,
considerations
declined.
.
Mocking the dreams
and the sweet scent of
hope that lingered
in the folds of
new skin
wrapped tightly
with what we thought
was happiness.
.
Possibility is a
far more pleasant
contemplation
than reality.
Bird haiku May 19, 2011
A violet bird sits
in her nest in the arbor,
filling sky with song
.
.
Congratulations Philip and Violet
just 10 more weeks ’til hatching!
Shawn L. Bird 