Labor Pains

We must not lose hope. We must believe that we are having labor pains and it hurts like hell and sounds like murder but ends with the birth of something amazing and new.

ON THE 2016 ELECTION

When my daughter was growing
inside me, my belly big as a boat
barely navigating the narrow waterways
of life, I remember the terror
and joy I felt from her amphibious
flutters, tiny feet and hands
that seemed to swim upstream,
deeper into the dark of my womb,
as if she knew that soon
she would have to face the vast landscape
of our magnificent, mutilated world

where wars blaze like late summer wildfires
whipping in the wind and we wander
lonely, so many homeless, hungry, fighting
to survive beneath the dark canopy
of an endless sky of stars so bright
we cry out in awe to see one fall.

When my water broke, the flood
tide of life’s liquor pooling at my feet,
I bellowed like a wild animal caught;
howled as I fought to expand
into each agonizing contraction,
the tender skin tearing jagged
and wide, a bloody new avenue from
inside me to this spectacular earth.

I cradled the tiny babe, spilled
out with that last push, still slippery
and shining from the swim. Drinking
in the deep blue of her new eyes
I listened to her crying voice
raised in greeting
and in protest
of all that would follow.

Penny Field

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