I love this poem by Anne Stevenson...
Oh truly. How a child delivers a Mother!
Poem for a Daughter
'I think I'm going to have it,'
I said, joking between pains.
The midwife rolled competent
sleeves over corpulent milky arms.
'Dear, you never have it,
we deliver it.'
A judgement the years proved true.
Certainly I've never had you
as you still have me, Caroline.
Why does a mother need a daughter?
Heart's needle, hostage to fortune,
freedom's end. Yet nothing's more perfect
than that bleating, razor-shaped cry
that delivers a mother to her baby.
The bloodcord snaps that held
their sphere together. The child,
tiny and alone, creates the mother.
A woman's life is her own
until it is taken away
by a first, particular cry.
Then she is not alone
but a part of the premises
of everything there is:
a time, a tribe, a war.
When we belong to the world
we become what we are.
This portion of Psalm 18 comes to mind often at the moment...
"Thou hast enlarged my steps under me; and my feet are not weakened. "
This is a time of manna living and it is precious.
The portion provided for the day is all that is needful.
I was thinking today, of
Psalm 23 as I held little Nola in my arms.
She slept so soundly and the sunlight echoed shyly through the sycamore leaves.
And I saw how God leads me to the quiet places and the gentle streams.
If only I stop to notice more often.
