9 Weeks

Song of Your Growing

Crown-to-rump 1.25 inches, our small grape
the plan of you completely laid down
taste and tooth buds approved
fingers and toes wiggling
ankles, wrists, and inner ear existing
nose flat and eyes far apart
We saw you spinning
and the tiny flicker of your heart,
150 beats per minute,
movement in a grey cloud
with blood circulating and brain
stemming a quarter million neurons
every 150 of those beats
I ponder all those neurons will become
No longer embryo, fetus now.

4:30 a.m.

Imponderable Weight

Earth keeps memory
of every dried wildflower pressed
to her book of time.

Earth remembers all--
each broken blue robin's shell
emptied from its nest.

How could Earth forget
the pleasures of your footfall,
light dance to slow step?


Athena, our baby-in-training, woke me up at 4:30 this morning. So, here's just some lines that began forming in my brain as I tried to get back to sleep. John Hollander shows this extended haiku form in Rhyme's Reason.

Since then, I've been watching the news. I see that the Missouri House of Representatives is trying to tack on legislation enabling pharmacies to not sell Plan B or even tell the women where they can get it. They're adding this provision to a bill on licensing legislation, SB296. So I e-mailed my Rep. and told her to be vocal against it. She's a Democrat from St. Louis. . . so obviously. . . but still. Some doofus from O'Fallon linked telling pharmacies to provide full medical services to communism: "I just have trouble understanding why anybody who is an American, who is not in favor of communism, would want us to dictate what we're going to say people can and cannot stock," (Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O'Fallon). Sometimes wouldn't it be so satisfying to just smack people? I also protest how the news articles inaccurately make Plan B and the abortion pill synonyms. The "or" here is very deceptive:

"The Missouri House has endorsed a measure specifically allowing pharmacies to decide whether to stock the "morning-after" emergency contraceptive or abortion pills." (See linked story above).

Ok, maybe I might go back to sleep now. Poetry and outrage worked out.

All humanity is pregnant with god*

Sometimes beauty breaks through
the shell of everyday eyesight
and the world is not the world
but a lifted veil
of green and brown and blue
that uncovers the reality
of its foundation.
Through a line of water
on my eyelashes
I see
through pure gratefulness
of sunshine on my face,
the world for a moment.
The foundation of love
like the wind
pushes back against my
spirit leaning into it.
The world whirling
and myself moving
bring forth god.
And I reaffirm in a whisper to god's ear:
"The best part of your creation
is infinitely love."


*Based on a reading of Rumi. From Speaking of Faith on the teachings and poetry of Rumi. Also see Fatemeh Keshavarz's "Pregnant with God: The Poetic Art of Mothering the Sacred In Rumi’s Fihi Ma Fih."

6 Weeks

Song of Your Growing

.16 to .20 inches long rump to crown human
limb buds, little fins with nodules at ends
future fingers and toes
arms into hand and shoulder segments

cerebral hemispheres
shadow eyes and nostrils
heart bulges, blood vessels circulate
head bent on chest

face forming, eyes on sides, sealed
discs that they will become
bone cells beginning
outline nervous system complete

pigment in eyes seen under skin
a pancreas and appendix
tail will soon fade
umbilical cord and placenta maturing

growing loved.