October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. It is also the month of my sweet Sophie's birthday. At full term, Sophie was stillborn on Halloween of 2005. Leading up to what would be my first daughter's fifth birthday, and in commemoration of all sleeping babies, I will be challenging myself. For each day of October, I will write and post a poem or piece of prose. Hopefully, this process will both get me through the month and inspire and encourage other parents to join in.
As Stephanie Cole, author of "Still" and founder of The Sweet Pea Project, wrote to me in recent conversation, this will be well worth it if "one mom open[s] up about something she's been burying inside of her for too long." And one mom is guaranteed. Because I will be writing at least one poem each day. I will be posting that poem daily, here on the blog. If you are a parent to (or love) a sweet sleeping baby, please feel free to join in. Or simply support the project of gathering parents, sisters, brothers, and partners here by grabbing our button in the sidebar, if you wish.
Express freely, and love easily. As always, thank you.
Wife and Mother.
A flowering lemon tree in the center of town,
planted years ago along the path to the sea.
Cut the pursed fruit through its center.
Juice emanates as water spills from springs.
Like gravity, a force, sour and potent,
Like blood, its emergence.
Hurricane blasts through town.
Sea twister of potent proportions,
Bringing its winds, rain, lightning, boom-resonance.
Storm waxes, chaos whips the faces and legs of man.
Storm dies, taking its squalls, but leaving exhaustions
and agonies profound in its own wake.
As a turtle is born on the torn shore,
Its egg-home shudders.
The only of its clutch to survive the storm.
On a piece of beach smoldered out like any other,
The stillness breaks. From a nest of lost sisters,
A pale, tiny shell wriggles and spins daylight.
The surface of beach gives birth to writhing.
Accross the shredded sand, a brilliant canary sun
Muscles his rays over all visible land.
His song powers through nuances of lemon flowers
And thickets of her leaves.
He drops his chin and gazes softly
Upon the somehow new turtle,
Who blinks unknowingly toward the sea.
planted years ago along the path to the sea.
Cut the pursed fruit through its center.
Juice emanates as water spills from springs.
Like gravity, a force, sour and potent,
Like blood, its emergence.
Hurricane blasts through town.
Sea twister of potent proportions,
Bringing its winds, rain, lightning, boom-resonance.
Storm waxes, chaos whips the faces and legs of man.
Storm dies, taking its squalls, but leaving exhaustions
and agonies profound in its own wake.
As a turtle is born on the torn shore,
Its egg-home shudders.
The only of its clutch to survive the storm.
On a piece of beach smoldered out like any other,
The stillness breaks. From a nest of lost sisters,
A pale, tiny shell wriggles and spins daylight.
The surface of beach gives birth to writhing.
Accross the shredded sand, a brilliant canary sun
Muscles his rays over all visible land.
His song powers through nuances of lemon flowers
And thickets of her leaves.
He drops his chin and gazes softly
Upon the somehow new turtle,
Who blinks unknowingly toward the sea.
(January 2007)
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