Friends,
So sorry today’s poetry prompt is so late! We’ve been on the road today and I’m just getting to a good spot.
But I want to get us to our poem, so here we go!
Today’s word is birth, because at the beginning of Winter we celebrate the birthday of Grandfather Sun and notice as the days slowly but surely get longer.
So what do we think of when we think of birth? What do you feel and understand?
It can be a really tender topic, it can be a topic that even brings grief and sadness or leaves us in need of space and care.
So, in the ways we embrace winter, what does birth bring about?
Birth
I followed the sun’s bright rays
and he led me back to myself.
I didn’t know that I, too,
was full of sunshine,
embodying birth and rebirth.
I will never doubt again.
There in the dark
A seed in the soil
Slowly grows, inch by inch
Cell divides, no light needed
A seed, an ovum, an egg
Pushes its way into a new
Version of itself:
When the babe knows its time to
Take up space and make its way out of
Its place for the past ten moons
The quiet of the womb is
Met with the bombardment of new sounds:
Familiar voice of mother, father, maybe brother or sister
A newcomer to this realm, an ordinary miracle.
Fifty-six years ago
in midwinter, my grandmother gave
birth to my mother.
Twenty-six years ago
in midwinter, my mother gave
birth to my sister.
Five years ago
in midwinter, I gave
birth to my daughter.
Fifty-nine years ago
in midsummer, my grandmother gave
birth to my aunt.
Thirty years ago
in midsummer, my mother gave
birth to me.
Two years ago
in midsummer, I gave
birth to my son.
We are connected
by generations
by seasons
by love,
and on
we go...