Mara Naomi

– For Cecilia

You give the world your blood and after birth
You make it seem so easy, waiting out
A want of moments, soothed by minutes’ hate
For hours – if they would come as once they came,
A steady sixty coming all the same, all the same…

No tears but silence; no tears – they could wait –
It wasn’t death as possible but life
As probable, too definite to wait.
The doctor’s practice comfort, keep the faith
With science, moving mountains through the earth. Through the earth,

We hear with hope as love beholds her name:
So seconds run ahead of months, create
A space for meaning’s cry, and void the doubt
To birth a lamb’s delayed and sudden bleat:
Her first and signal heartbeat – bittersweet, bittersweet.

– July 18, 2007