Posts Tagged "poetry"
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I lie in sickly soft fluorescent glow,
numb in mind but not in bone.
Ten marathons run hard and long
in just one day and night.
My eyes are fixed on the plastic crib
for signs of life, for need. I do not know you
yet my every nerve is tuned
to each new foreign snuffle sound.
And then, a cry. I pounce
and join you in your wail as stitches pull,
looking down in shock at this strange weight
my arms have never known.
A red mouth opens wide with rage.
The blood-loss shakes me empty, cold.
This rigid, curled tight horror that you are.
My world turned inside-out.
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I know that some of you may find this poem rather shocking. It was the second poem I wrote this week for my assignment based on the study of autobiographical memory, prompted by my reading of a wonderful, healing book called ‘What Mother’s Do’ by Naomi Stadlen that explores feelings experienced after childbirth in one of its early chapters.
I love my son, I hope that fact shines from the pages of this blog, but when thinking back to the first few hours after his birth, my memories weren’t those of love, or sudden infatuation, or that magical sense of ‘knowing’ this beautiful new baby in my life. No, my memories were of shock, fear, confusion and complete bewilderment at what on earth I was supposed to do with this thing that I had absolutely no understanding of.
I wanted to share this because I know many, many other mothers feel the same, and that those early emotions are often hard to acknowledge or to talk about.
And I wanted to say that I think it is ok that we feel like this. That shock at such a life-changing event is a normal part of the process, that MOST women feel like this, some dads too. But at the same time, from these terrifying first beginnings, most parents build a deep, powerful and deeply satisfying love for their children and a confidence in their parenting abilities. And it takes time, for some much longer than you would expect, and that too is normal. We’re not talking days here, we’re talking weeks, even months.
Nearly two years on and I’m still getting used to my little stranger to be honest. But knowing that my love for him is something that wasn’t exactly given to me on a plate, but is something that I worked for, nurtured, grew, makes it all the more precious and significant to me. A love hard-won and all the deeper for it.
How about you? How does your experience of early parenthood compare? Did it take you some time to move past that shock and overwhelming feeling of being out of your depth? Or was it a gentler transition?
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I have put together a page with a selection of some of my recent poetry which can now be accessed from the page menu at the top and to act as an archive for some of the work I may have previously shown here. There you’ll also find the finished edit of the ‘Accidental Meeting’ poem I shared with the workshop yesterday, if you fancied a read. Thank you for all your feedback, encouragement and support. It really helps me in developing my work and gives me the confidence to keep going. Special thanks to Deer Baby and Muddling Along for their time and feedback yesterday x
Day Off
Can I not be a mum today?
I fear it’s not my calling.
The hours are crap for starters
And the job description’s boring.
I’d rather be an astronaut.
At least it’s quiet up there.
My wobbly bits would suit no-grav,
Suspended in the air.
Or I could try out espionage.
I’d be great at fearless guile:
“Yes sweetheart this is REALLY fun!”
I’d lie through sugared smile.
I could train wild animals,
Poo wouldn’t make me queasy.
I’ve braved a toddler cutting canines
So a lion would be easy.
I hear Human Research pays well,
Volunteering’s all the rage.
And you get to lie down everyday
In an aesthetic haze.
Even prison inmate
Seems more attractive by the hour.
At least I’d get my meals served
And time to take a shower.
Can I not be a mum today?
One day, that’s all I ask!
I promise then I won’t resent
My normal humdrum tasks.
One day of something different
To be adventurous, inspiring.
After all, I’m over qualified:
Is anybody hiring?!
Bloggers for Haiti – Pink Ribbons in the Dawn
I have been unborn into an under place
Shaken from my play to be buried deep.
Bright candles slowly snuffed out, crushed out.
Till all is dark and still.
There is a monster here
That growls with my stomach’s empty growl.
Its breath is hot upon my face, loud in this space.
It smells of dirt and death.
The ground still moves and trembles in my insides,
Tongue rasps on crackled lips as I call to empty air.
I search and find a hand to hold. Unfriendly, cold.
I sleep and drift away.
I dream I hear my father’s voice above
Shouts low and deep, the world shifts and moves.
Arms reach through mud and stone, they find my home.
An eye opens, all is white.
At last I am reborn, borne up and out
Delivered to my mother’s waiting breast.
Eyes burning, dust is in the air, my hair.
Pink ribbons in the dawn.
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I am so upset tonight. Tonight I sat and made myself look at some of the images from the Haiti earthquake. I read accounts of conditions there. I read of people’s terrible, unimaginable loss. I read of the injured and dying. The homeless, the displaced. Little or no food or water or medicine.
It is so easy to turn our backs on the horror. To figure that the tragedy has already happened and that we no longer need to think about it. It is so easy to be consumed by so much sadness and helplessness that we do nothing.
I have realised you have to look for hope. Tiny glimmers of light in so much darkness. Like a two year old girl, Mia Charlotte, pulled from the wreckage of her kindergraten virtually unscathed after being trapped for 72 hours and for whom I wrote my poem.
Hope frees us from inaction and paralysis. So many lives have been lost, but so many lives could still be saved if we act now. We can be these people’s hope if only we get off our asses and do something. NOW.
I have little money, but what I have I have given. I give my words too, and my thoughts and my prayers for what they are worth.
Give. It doesn’t need to be much, it just needs to be something.
Please.
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