Today I am a Mother

poem

Today I am a Mother

I woke up today before everyone else in the house
descended the flight quietly, leaving 
the dog's paws for the morning’s first sound.
As the umber dissolve unmasked mountains 
hidden for months, I wondered: Who else is 
watching this now and not wanting it to end? 

But time diluted the reveal, and the dog needed  
walking, so we went, leash in hand, out
the front door where on the drive was
a robin, too ruddy and small to be left
in the open and breathing that way. 
I looked at it close, with so many questions. 
For everything I knew, I didn't know what to do,  
because: What is to be done about a life  
in front of you that you can't live 
yourself or look away from either? 

I went on with the morning, with the dog;
with the soft pouch inside me thickening 
just a little; watched the horses gnaw
the best, new blades and green honeysuckle 
suckle up to whatever it could. I spied 
alert, burgeoning peonies, heard their
pleas to the ignition of the sun: 
Make me a firework of your heart! 
  
And returning to the drive, the juvenile American 
still there but now spreading slowly its left wing 
then its right; so wary, yet entirely set on 
the inherited, ancient quest. And I thought: 

Today, I am a mother to this robin, this star 
between wings I could not know how to save,
this unmappable world, blood full of flight. 

Thank you for reading,

{|AC

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