The Day You Joined Us

On the day you joined us there was joy and terror.
I was too scared to scream.
I was too upset to cry.
I was too relieved to think.
Someday I'll be able to tell you that it matters that you were born safe and healthy
And it also matters that it didn't go as planned
And that I was scared out of my mind.
Someday I'll tell you how I grieve that I was asleep and didn't see you until you were clean and wrapped and had sat with Abba by my bed for hours.
Some day
I'll also tell you that when I gave you milk I felt that you were truly born at last
That I finally felt you mine.
Some time
I'll have the courage to tell you
I had pain and horror
But
You were the best medicine there was.
Someday you'll be old enough to understand why I won't read you On the Day You Were Born
But I'll read Love You Forever
And I'll mean it.
I'm still sorry for both of us
Your poor little body suffered too
I'll always regret that.
The day you joined us was among the most terrifying
Scariest
Hardest things I've ever done
But I'd do it again to have you here.
I would die for you but that's not what you need.
Living is harder
But I'll do that too.
And some day I'll hold you
And tell you your story
And I hope I'll be able to help you understand
Though I never want you to have to live through it
No matter what it was worth it.

It can't always be said in prose...

I've been feeling and thinking and processing a lot of things as I think about having another child next year or so (no we're not actively trying... but we'd like to fairly soon... maybe.)

There are things that are so hard to express just by writing through them... Sometimes giving them a meter, a pulse, helps me say things I couldn't otherwise.

And so, I subject you to my poetry again. Apologies in advance.

Instrument

Male and Female He Created them; she birthed her children in sorrow.
In these words there is a song, it is the song of many ages,
It is the song of many women, it is the song of much travail,
And of the knowing that even in joy there is fear and sorrow.

When my first child grew in my womb I learned the song,
I almost lost the girl so small, I learned that she would fight for life,
And as I kept her safe inside, such joy,
And as she left, such awe and fear- that she could not be kept safe from everything anymore...

There were some almost-theres, faint flickers of hope,
Hope of a child that never was.
They are part of the song, my body singing the wrong notes,
They weren't quite mine, not quite in key.

There was another babe, she did not eat
She could not coordinate her mouth
To suck with joy the milk that sang from my breasts
And so her screaming joined the song.

She grew and learned to sing more sweetly with me. Another came,
She was not with me, and the song became desperate,
Where is my child? My body screamed,
But she was back with me soon, and I was scarred but whole.

I learned to sing again but just in time
For the sweetest melody I'd known to stop-
Stop!
Breaking my heart as my body was broken,
Breaking my soul almost as I clung to the melody
The eternal litany
The sorrow and the joy entwined
Every mother of every child
Every father of every child
Every mother who never had a child
They all sang too...

And I was upside down and heard her song
And knew it was not lost.

And so I found the strength to sing again
This song so bright and fervent gave me hope
And though I felt I failed her as again I broke
She was so strong she sang despite it all.

And so I choose to sing again the song
This time in a much richer voice
Knowing that the dark and minor notes
Work only toward the whole though the discord
And atonal shriek may mar the song again
Still will I sing...

Some say that I should stop, some say my body can't
I say that through the ages women have in joy and sorrow sung
And I will sing until my song's complete.
And I will do it in this body,
This, twice-broken, much battered, too-big,
Twice-healed
Just-right
Instrument
My voice shines through it,
And so because it is the instrument of my song
It is beautiful.

And once again it will let me sing
And even should it break again
And even if it cracks
in half
Even then
I will have my song.

And it is the song of ages.
It stretches forward to my children
And back and back and back
And it is the song of Ruth, and Rebekah, and Sarah, and Eve.
And it is still the song that is most beautiful of all to me
And full of joy
Even when it's full of sorrow.
And
It is mine.

More bad poetry

(Actually there's a tune running through my head for it. So perhaps it's a poorly written song as much as bad poetry.)

The Clouds

On dreary days, when all the world is grey and dark,
And in the air there hangs the taste of woe,
I sometimes think that there's no feeble little spark
That can dispel the clouds that gloomier grow.
And when I think on losses hard and heavy,
Sometimes I wonder why I must endure;
But I remember that my Father levies
Only that which my triumph will procure.

Well do I know my Savior bore my anguish
And that He bore my burden hard for me
So I'll not low in sorrow pine and languish
But stop to pray and thus make myself free.
Then I'll recall the joys that I now live with,
And the delight I had with those now gone,
Thus will I scrape the sorrow down to find the pith
Of joy that bears me up as I march on.

Waiting For You

I'm not a patient waiter.
I was never one to sit quietly and wait my turn,
To find a pleasant way to pass the time,
I have turned back because the line's too long, often.
I was waiting for you for a year, for it to be the right time for you to come.
Then I waited months more, learning to be patient,
Not impatient as I had been before,
Learning to tame my mind,
To calm my thoughts,
To wait for you to come
Patiently.
I thought I was getting better at it.
And as soon as you came you were gone
And now I have to wait again.
I have to learn to walk without you
I have to learn to laugh without you
I have to learn to sleep without you
I have to learn to BE without you.
Even when you're here, I can't know.
Even if you are busy, I can't see.
Even though it was time, I can't count
Each minute
Each breath
Each smile
Each tear
Each song
With you.
I have to wait
And I
Hate
To wait.
But you're worth it
And so I'll spend the rest of my life
Waiting for you.